


The Shade of the Earth

by HeRell_77



Series: Wild Magic [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Anal, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blood and Violence, Complete, Fantasy, Feral Behavior, Frottage, Gay For You, Knotting, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mates, May/December Relationship, Oral Sex, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Slavery, Topping from the Bottom, True Mates, Werecats, bobcat shifter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-06-29 10:56:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 32
Words: 67,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeRell_77/pseuds/HeRell_77
Summary: *****COMPLETE— Book three in the Wild Magic Series. Sequel to By the Light of the Moon and The Dark of the Sun, but can be read as a stand-alone. The Shade of the Earth is a M/M, May/December, gay-for-you romance with fated mates, knotting, and a bobcat shifter with a small stature and big spunk.*****Robert has been surrounded by men attracted and romantically involved with other men for most of his life. He accepts his friends, defends them, loves them... but has never really understood them and their attraction to other men.Now, a diminutive bobcat shifter, with all the spunk of his feline counterparts, nameless and without a family or home, has claimed him as his mate, refuses to leave his side, and somehow forces him to see sex and attraction in a whole new light.But just as things are beginning to fall into place for Robert and his Sami, will they have everything ripped away by a dark figure from Robert's past?





	1. The Origin of the Wild Mages

**Author's Note:**

> "I'm confused, Sami. This is... a lot. I've never been attracted to a man. I like women- I don't like men! Please understand, all of this is a lot for me."
> 
> "I'm not men," the shifter whispered, a single tear dripping across his temple and back into his curly, ragged hair. "I'm your Sami."
> 
> The words had the breath in my lungs freezing painfully. I stared down into his simple, open face, and had a sudden, near-violent realization. 
> 
> Sami ran on pure, feral instinct. This didn't make him stupid, it didn't make him simple of mind. It made his desires and thought process easy and pure. 
> 
> He wanted me, I was denying him. He couldn't understand any other reason for me to do this other than his own inadequacies. He didn't understand the laws of attraction as humans saw them. He saw only that I was his mate. And I was denying him.

Ravin, daughter of Alma and Leba, created to be goddess and queen, protector and guardian of the beasts of the wild, grew weary of the violence beget upon her creatures. To her, the humans her mother and father had created to populate the world were cruel and capricious, killing her beasts without scruple, simply for fear or sustenance. 

Upset at the imbalance she perceived, Ravin took a male and a female human, and a male and a female beast, two of her first and favorites, and combined their souls. She needed an ambassador, a creature both man and beast, both human and monster, to be her right hands. To protect the wild, and keep safe that which she ruled over. 

The first wild mages were beings of immense power, able to shift into any form they so desired, and they bred and created many more of their kind. These first, primordial and immortal wild mages were forever after called Ravin’s Guardians. With each new generation, a little bit more human was infused into the mages, until they had the soul of a beast that could take only one form. This Ravin had planned, for it ensured that each of the animals in her kingdom had a proper ambassador that would look out and care for them alone.

As time passed, her wild mages grew weary of their duties, for they were alone and misunderstood. They couldn’t fully join their counterparts in the wild, for they had the mind of a human. But neither could they only live among the humans, for their animal instincts and beastial qualities turned many humans away from them. They were ostracized and in some cases hated for the way they were born and the way they lived. 

Ravin, a benevolent goddess, kind and fierce in her loyalties, consulted with her mother Alma, goddess of creation. Together, they created the mates to Ravin’s wild mages. The man or woman, usually human, who was the perfect half of the wild mage’s soul. The one being in all of creation that could not only love and accept the wild mage in all their differences and unique needs, but stand by their side and aid them in their duties as Ravin’s right hand and ambassadors. 

Finding a mate was always rare— something to be coveted; a connection prized above all else. And when it is found, when the two or more become as one, it is to be held onto and never released. For so has Alma and her daughter Ravin ordained it to be.


	2. Prologue 1– the Stray and the Witch

ROBERT, 20 YEARS AGO—

I stifled a curse as I glared down the full ball gown that was tied to my sergeants' tent, the ugly red wig perched precariously above the neck of the gown. I had been in Dasan and Nibley's troupe for nearly six years, and this kind of shit was common. I had even joined in at first, though I was never the instigator in the pranks. I found them amusing, though. For how wrong, disgusting, immoral was it for two men to be romantically and _sexually_ tied? To this day it made me blanch. 

The day Dasan took an arrow for me and Nibley decimated an entire army for his man, his lover, and for me, was the day I stopped laughing. And started defending the two men who had very quickly become my very best friends. The elder brothers I'd never had. 

No matter whom they loved, they were human, my comrades. They were men who deserved my respect and my empathy. It just took a bit for me to learn that lesson. I was ashamed of that, of my initial ignorance, and even of my continuing discomfort with their love, but they never held it against me, and for that they were better men than I would ever be. 

Now though, a day didn't go by that I wasn't in trouble with our bigoted, close-minded captain for defending my friends from this kind of fucking _bullshit_. 

I ripped the dress down and turned with a scowl when I heard snickers behind me. 

"Ya know they're monogamous, right, Robbie?" Lyker, a spoiled third son of a nobleman called, sneering as I growled at the horrible butchering of my name. I hated any variation of my name— Rob, Robbie, Bob. They all made me flinch. "They ain't gonna let you in their tent or their bed, no matter how much you beg to suck their cocks."

"You know from experience?" I shot back, wanting to laugh aloud as Lyker's face turned an ugly shade of puce. 

"That's enough," Captain Scarrot grumbled, rolling his eyes as he glared me down. "It was a joke, Robert. Loosen up and learn to laugh a little."

I opened my mouth to reply that it was most definitely not funny, it never was, but I was interrupted by a contingent of men— maybe 15– led into our camp by a man who made every man in the camp take a second look. 

The face of an angel on the body of a warrior, the man was awe inspiring and had every soldier

around me wary. Something about him screamed danger, sending pinpricks of fear down my spine. The man who rode beside him wasn't much better, maybe worse, even, for he didn't have a face that looked as if it was carved by the gods themselves. He was rugged and built solidly, with a scar underneath his left eye, dark brown hair and full, unkempt beard. Piercing black eyes, and leather armor that matched his dark aura. A hood covered his head and obscured most of his face, but what I could see placed him at maybe 30 years of age. Something about him was... off. Wrong. 

Evil. 

The first man jumped from his horse, leaving the dark man looking around at the soldiers who milled about the camp. We had been stationed in this outpost in the middle of nowhere for weeks, and not even the captain had been exempt from complaining of boredom. 

"Captain," the man called, and the captain smiled widely. 

"Lord Gale," he answered with a mewling, deep bow. "I'm so glad you've come! To what do I owe this honor?"

"I'm seeking a runaway slave, and my witch says she's come this way."

"Ah," Captain Scarrot mumbled, shifting uncomfortably. Though slavery was legal in the Empire, the Teren prince frowned on it, and it was rumored he would be outlawing the owning and selling of slaves soon. "I haven't seen anyone come through here in at least a week, slave or no."

"She's no longer here, my Lord," the dark man called from the saddle, his head cocked, as if listening for something. 

I glared up at the man, hatred coursing through me. Of course he was a witch. Likely a dark witch, if he was working as, or with, a slaver. 

"Are you certain, Hark?" 

The witch, Hark, looked around, his eyes scanning the camp around him, before turning back to Lord Gale. 

"Positive, my Lord."

" _The child-slave is with your Sergeants Dasan and Nibley. I will lead the Lord west. Send the child north. She will find safety there_."

The witch continued to talk quietly with the man who commanded him, but I heard the words ringing in my mind as if he spoke them just against my ear. Though he spared me not a glance, I knew the words came from him. His aura, his presence, the evil in his eyes changed not at all, but his voice in my mind, while not kind, was somehow... soothing. 

Was this a trap? A man like him wouldn't do something like this— help a slave escape— without some ulterior motive. But for some reason, he was, and it made me wary of accepting his help. But what choice did I have? If Nibley and Dasan truly had the child in their tent, what else could I do but hope the dark witch was actually an ally?

I gave what I hoped was an imperceptible nod, and then just as quickly as they came, they were gone, and I was left wondering how many strays Dasan and Nibley would pick up before one of them got them killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Isn't it adorable that Dasan and Nibley have sort of always been taking in strays, culminating in basically adopting Cain? I just freaking love them haha*****


	3. Prologue 2: Chosen Favorite

SAMIRE, 16 YEARS AGO—

 _Deep breaths_ , I intoned deep inside, my small, frail human feet ripping open just a bit more with each step. _Just keep breathing. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out._

My heaving pants were heavy, my tiny body lagging as Pa pushed me forward. We had left Ma behind an hour ago, and it had taken less than five minutes for us to hear her screams as she was torn apart by Master's hounds. 

"Run, little one! Faster!" Pa hissed, his own body covered in sweat, his face red with exertion. My pa was young, I knew even then, far too young to have the lines of stress, overwork, and fear on his face. His body was bent with his hours, days, years in the coal mines of the Lirikian king, his skin stained permanently and his lungs scarred with the time spent in the deep mines. 

I wished I could shift. If I could only take my cat form, I could outrun, outjump, outclimb any of those stupid dogs Master had sent after us when Pa and Ma decided to make a run for it, when Ma got chosen to warm Master's bed. But Pa had been firm in his words when warning me against using my shifting.

"If they see what ya are, they'll do worse than enslave ya, boy," he would say, going into rants about what was done to capture wild mages. Ma had tried to calm him during these rants, but nothing could draw him back once he fell into a passionate fervor. 

Now though, I couldn't think of much worse than being captured by Master's dogs. 

"Pa!" I screamed when my pa behind me faltered and tripped over a protruding tree root. "Pa! Ge'up, Pa!"

"Boy!" Pa gasped, his breath coming in deep, aching heaves. "All that stuff— stuff I told ya, about not shiftin'?"

"I remember, Pa. I won't—"

"— _Shift_!" he hissed, shoving me back roughly. "Shift and run! Don't look back, no matter what ya hear or see! Run!"

Shocked and terrified, I obeyed without question. Within seconds, I was scrambling up the nearest tree as a bobcat kit. Pa's screams of anguish chased me for miles, but I kept on running. Never looking back. Too terrified to even stop to take a breath or even drink from the many cool springs I passed, no matter how many leagues I put between myself and Master's dogs. 

I was running so fast, I didn't even notice I was surrounded until I ran straight into a woman's ankles.

I mewled and fell back to the earth, righting myself as quickly as I could so I could run back the other way. 

To no avail. All around me, men and women stood, staring down at me with mixed emotions. Some were amused, others confused. A handful were angry, including a man who towered above the others and sent terror straight into my heart. 

I knew this man. He was a friend of Master's, a friend who brought him slaves and loot from the wars in the south. A man who had looked at Pa like he wanted to eat him before noticing me and scoffing. 

An evil man with the face of an angel. 

"What do we have here?" the woman I ran into whispered, her eyes sparkling with amusement and affection as she crouched until she was hovering above me. "How did you get here, little one?"

I moved closer to the woman, sensing her protection would extend to me. Sensing she was safe, whereas the man behind me would sooner step on me than let me run from him after seeing him here. 

"He's one of yours, sister," the man muttered, rolling his eyes as the woman smiled and cooed at me gently. "You sure he's not here, to spy on your orders?"

"Of course not," the woman whispered, her voice soothing but somehow backed with steel. "He's just a kit. Aren't you, sweetheart?"

I could feel myself purring before I really knew what I was doing, and the woman's smile widened. She was a stunning human— though my nose told me she was the furthest from human I'd ever laid eyes on, she _looked_ human enough. She had black hair that was shaved on her right side, but hung to her hips in the back and the left side. It hung in curls and was a thick, pure black. Her skin was dark like my pa's, darker even, something I had most definitely not inherited from him, her eyes black, and her limbs long and graceful. 

"You are one of my Chosen, little one," the woman whispered, her voice deepening as she stared directly into my eyes. Her voice tightened, growing into something of a growl as the men and women around her stepped in, as if creating a protective circle around the two of us. "Your path will be long, and your beast will be stronger than most of your kind, your instincts honed by your time in only one form. But you will find him someday: the other half to your soul. The human created to accept and love you. The one you were created to protect and claim. Be patient with him, little one. You're not what he's expecting in a mate."

The woman's words had her chuckling a little before she rose up, turning from me, back to the man. Her face immediately closed off and froze in anger towards the man the moment she her eyes lighted on him. 

"Leave my forest, Gaol," she growled, the words coming out like a bear, like a wild cat, like a feral tiger protecting its young. "Leave my guardians behind, and cease trying to turn them to your warmongering ways. We don't want you here. This is _my_ domain, and you are not welcome here."

"Sister," the man began, but the woman took two steps forward, each step backed by the dozen creatures around her. For between blinks the men and women had disappeared, replaced by a dozen beasts of every shape and size. Wolves the size of horses, bears nearly double that, cougars and foxes, jaguars and hyenas. Some I didn't even know the names of. 

" _Leave. My. Home. Now_ , Gaol, and take your hatred and envy with you. I want nothing to do with it."

"Mother and Father will hear about your refusal to aid me, Ravin," the man hissed.

"Good," the woman answered, scoffing and rolling her eyes. "Maybe it will wake them up from their pathetic, neglectful slumber and I won't have to deal with you so much in their place."

With her parting words, the man was suddenly gone, leaving behind only empty air and a fear of him I could nearly taste. 

"Worry not, little one," the woman cooed as the beasts around her began to disperse into the forest. "He will not harm you. He has bigger things to worry about than a little bobcat kitten. Isn't that right, Marlin?"

The only remaining beast was a huge black bear, staring me down with eyes like coals, his nose raised and pointed directly at me. Then it was gone, replaced by a man nearly as large as the bear. His pale blue eyes, dirty blonde hair that hung in dreadlocks down his back, and full beard complemented a stern but kind-looking face. 

"Right, Mistress," the bear said, his voice deep and grumbly, as if pulled directly from within his great chest. 

"Now, I know not how you got through the celestial barrier, little one, but it's time to go back. Take care of yourself. I'll be watching out for you, my child."

I mewled and the woman smiled and shook her head. "No, you can't stay. Marlin, take him back to the mortal forest. Keep an eye on him for a while, maybe, yeah?"

"Yes, Mistress," Marlin said with a deep bow. And then he was turning to me and gesturing for me to follow him, the woman suddenly no longer in the clearing. "Let's go, kit. We'll get ya back to your own realm."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****I feel like this story is kind of a "meeting of the characters," or something, as I start to move into starting to introduce the Strange Magics Series. There are quite a few characters you meet in this one that will feature in Strange Magics. And I just want to point them out, so's you know. Idk. I'd want to know— So remember Marlin, ok? Like, not for this story, or the next, or the one after haha... just... remember him ;)*****


	4. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Enjoy! Sami does have a... unique voice, doesn't he? He was interesting to channel lol
> 
> I like Arms by Christina Perri as Robert & Sami's song, but I'm not 100% convinced it's their song, you know? What do you think? (This is very important stuff, doncha' know?) ;)*****

ROBERT—

"Mate."

I flinched and took a step back, my eyes wide as I took in the sight of the man before me. The entire courtyard that had been bustling and loud just moments before fell silent as they all turned to stare the short man down. The man that had moments before been a dark-furred bobcat.

And he was _small_. Barely a handful of inches above five feet, at most, he looked as if he would be a few inches shorter than even Edon, whom I frequently teased for his size. Starved and malnourished, he stood naked and trembling as he stared up at me with huge, almond-shaped eyes nearly half the size of his face. 

His hair was dirty blonde, maybe a very light brown, curling and messy around his face, his skin deeply tanned from a life in the sun, and his eyes looked as if the gods hadn't been able to decide what color to paint them, so had mixed them all into one vibrant pool. The colors shone and swirled in eyes with pupils slitted like a cat's. 

The first men I'd met who openly showed their attraction to other men were Captains Dasan and Nibley. I'd been young and stupid and ignorant, and desperately wanting to fit in with the other soldiers. Wanting to prove myself a man. Born the youngest of five boys, I'd had a lot to prove, and joining the Emperor's army was the way I'd chosen to prove my masculinity.

I'd laughed at the pranks the other soldiers played on the two men, called them "the faggot captains" along with everyone else. 

And then I nearly died and was saved by those men. Those men who had seen me laughing, heard me use slurs to refer to them, hadn't even hesitated in risking their lives to save my own. 

I was young and stupid, but I wasn't a complete moron. Whatever benevolent higher power there may or may not be out there had very clearly slapped me on the back of the head and pointed out two men who were better than I deserved to have as friends. 

But I latched on anyways, and they took me in like a little brother— as if I didn't have enough brothers. They helped me train, laughed with me, fought by my side, and showed me what true loyalty and, yes, love was. I loved them both, they were my family. Was I still uncomfortable when they kissed or shared little, sweet touches? Yes. I wouldn't deny it, and they knew it. They thought it hilarious. 

Did that mean I wanted them to stop kissing and sharing loving touches? Fuck no. The shit they'd had to deal with in their lives, they deserved the peace and quiet they'd found now in Prince Lhiam's employ. 

But just because I was friends with men— a growing number of men and women, it seemed, really— who looked at sexuality differently than I, didn't change the way I personally felt about it. It didn't make me open to that kind of sexual exploration. 

Hell no. 

Captains Dasan and Nibley had just finished explaining to me about the bobcat that had likely saved their lives, Cain's life, the Emperor's life, and the lives of the Emperor's guards. The small group had left Teren Keep only half a day before, on their way back to the Emperor's Palace, when they had been set upon by mercenaries. Just when they had been pushed to their limits, a bobcat had come out of the trees and aided them to victory. 

It had been only an hour before Dasan and Nibley had all but dragged the survivors of the raid through the keep's walls that a cougar had jumped through the same gates with the Emperor on its back. Within seconds of the keep's guards noticing the Emperor on the animal's back, only after having released a volley of arrows at the approaching figure, the creature was gone, replaced by a very irate, now-injured Cain. 

I had known about Prince Edon having the ability to shift into a wolf, and had guessed that Cain might have a similar ability. The way the two men interacted, the way Cain acted sometimes— animalistic and nearly feral— made me wonder. Now, I had not only seen for myself Cain's animal, but there was another at my feet, spouting nonsense. 

"Mate," the small man repeated, much to my irritation and frustration. Prince Edon had once talked about a "wild mage's mate," as he had called it. The perfect soulmate to a wild mage, who was a human who shared their soul with an animal. But it was as naive and silly a story as any of the mystical tales told of fae and monsters and gods and demons. 

All gibberish.

And now, dear heavens, this newest wild mage had fixated on me. 

BOBCAT SHIFTER—

Humans are terrifying. Let's start with that. My parents were human, I'm human— some of the time. But they scare me the way nothing else can. In the forest, there's a set way of living if you want to survive. You kill smaller, weaker things to eat. You don't drink the water if there is a carcass next to it, uneaten. And you keep away from bears— those fuckers are mean as shit. 

Human civilization has no such set rules. The laws of interaction and survival change depending on what country you're in, who you're talking to, and the most unassuming human could be the most powerful. In the wild, for the most part, what ya saw was really what ya got. 

But not where people ruled. Oh no. They could be all smiles just before they turned on you like vipers. The humans like to think of themselves as similar to apes. But no, they are much closer to snakes, I say. The big ones that kinda squeeze you until you just kinda stop fighting. 

I've avoided humans and their civilization for years. How long, I really don't know. I think I'm probably 25 at this point, and I was still a child when Ma and Pa was killed, so it's been a decade and a half at least. Maybe more. Probably not less. 

Ma was a Swabiri slave from the northern reaches of the continent, Pa was an Akaran slave. Neither had the wild magic, but it must'a been in Pa's blood 'cause he passed that on to me and gave me my cat. For which I was grateful, 'cause I would'a died alongside the two of them if I hadn't been able to shift, leap, and escape. 

Though I wouldn't be in my current predicament either, I suppose. 

A group of mercenaries and "mage hunters," as they called themselves, had been on my trail for days. How they found out that I weren't no ordinary bobcat, I hadn't the slightest, but somehow they knew. And they wanted my pelt. 

I knew wild mage pelts were worth a pretty penny— Pa had warned me of this any chance he could. But I'd never before had to face that head-on like now. 

I'd been running for days before they finally fell behind. I'd managed to kill a handful here and there, as they'd gone away from the group or just whenever I was able. When they fell so far behind I could no longer hear them, I doubled back to see what had happened. Logic should dictate I grab my head start by the horns and run with it, but there were a few reasons I needed to know why they pulled back. 

First, I needed to make sure they hadn't found a way to come around my front somehow. They had been chasing me for days, so they were obviously persistent. Why would they now just give up?

Second and more pressing, instinct rode me hard. Something was back there. Something my cat screamed at me to track down. 

_Home_ , he whispered. _Home. Family. Safe_. 

When I came upon the little camp my enemies had stopped chasing me to attack, I was met with a sad sight. Only three men and a cougar shifter— the biggest damn cat I'd ever seen— stood against nearly two dozen mercenaries. There were bodies littered around the clearing, many of them dead, some soon would be. 

Each and every one of the remaining men standing against the mercenaries had a lingering scent making me want to curl up and purr. It smelled like home and warmth and safety and family and peace. 

So of course, I helped them, fighting even the scrawny bear shifter who hid in the brush around the camp, not joining into the fray until the others had begun to run like the cowards they were. I chased the bear shifter first, though I was careful to keep out of the reach of his claws. I injured him enough to slow him down, but I didn't dare try for too much more. He was a bear shifter; I weren't an idiot. 

Then I followed the men back to a human town, watching from the shadows as they carried their wounded through the gates. My nose picked up on the smell I'd been chasing, and I followed them inside, for the first time in many years passing through the gates of a human dwelling, my paws silent against the stones beneath me. 

Just as I heard someone exclaim as they caught sight of me, I managed to catch scent of him. 

_Mate_ , my cat growled, shoving me forward until I stood just at his feet. He glanced down at me warily, his left fist gripping the sword at his waist. 

_Mine._


	5. Mate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***** I'd like to thank my cat Artemis for the inspiration for Sami lollol*****

BOBCAT SHIFTER—

"Robert!" a voice called from behind me. I wanted to turn, to face this new threat, but I couldn't take my eyes off my mate. Everything inside of me screamed that he was mine. I was his. We were meant to be. Fated. Connected somewhere between the soul, the body, and the heart. In a place where all three met. 

_Mine_. 

I didn't even notice I had shifted until I had spoken, voicing my claim, and now I stood naked before my mate. I was excited for him to appreciate what was his before he turned away from me almost immediately to face the male who had called out to him. I felt myself droop in disappointment at the way my mate's eyes easily moved over my body with no interest at all.

Was I not pleasing to my mate?

Was there something wrong with my body? I glanced down, not even sure what I looked like. It had been years since I was in my human form, years before that since I actually saw my reflection. I'd no idea what I looked like, really. 

"Robert," the man said again as he stepped up far too close to my mate. I growled low, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. The man glanced at me, his own lips rising up to show me his teeth. 

The man was only a little taller than me, but he was bigger. Mostly because it seemed I was small in my human form. I barely stood at my mate's chest. Was that why he hadn't shown any interest? Was I too small? Were humans more like animals than I'd thought, where a runt like me would be seen as too weak to live? Would I be a bad choice for a mate?

"Who's this?" the man said, his voice soothing and muted, the way I had heard humans speak to their livestock and pets when they was spooked. 

"Just a moment ago, he was a bobcat," my mate replied, raising a brow and giving the man a meaningful glance. As if they shared a secret.

My ire rose and I advanced a step on the intruder. I could smell wolf in his soul, but if I was defending my claim on my mate, I figured I may stand some bit'a a chance against the mutt.

"Mine," I rasped, my voice thick and hard to push out. My lips were chapped and my throat raw. I hadn't spoken aloud in more than a decade, but I held my stance steady as I lowered my head to protect my neck from attack and put myself in between my new mate and the man who seemed far too familiar with him. "Mine. Mine mate."

The wolf held his hands up, his brows rising as his nostrils flared. "Alright," he soothed, using that same tone'a voice I was already getting irritated with. "That's alright. I'm not here to take him from you."

I snorted in disbelief and shook my head, huffing to get some of my hair out of my eyes. 

"Can you tell us your name? Mine is Edon," the wolf said clearly, as if I couldn't understand the simple words, his hands still raised calmingly. 

"Mine," I replied, unsure if I could push out any of the other words I could remember from Before. Before Ma and Pa had been murdered. Before I had left them in pools of their own blood and never looked back. Before I had left any sense of humanity behind and entered the forest. It had been so long— over a decade, maybe nearly two— since I was in my human form and interacted with humans, I wondered how I could even speak the few words I was managing to force out. 

"Alright," the wolf said, his eyes flickering behind me, prolly to my mate. "But you need to calm down, ok? Your mate— Robert— he's human. He's not a mage, alright? He doesn't understand, and he can't feel the mate bond like you can. You're going to scare him."

_My mate's name is Robert._

_Thank you, Mistress_ , I prayed silently to the goddess who had protected me when I was just a kit, and who had created me to find my Robert someday. _I finally found him_. 

She'd be proud, I knew. He was a good mate, I could see already. There was kindness in his eyes and strength in his hands. He would keep me safe, and his big body would keep me warm when it got cold. My mistress had chosen well for me, I was certain. 

I glanced back at my mate, assessing for fear. I smelled none, but I couldn't read any of the expressions I could see flickering across his face neither. I never had been good at assessing Ma and Pa's moods either, and lack of practice over the years seemed to have made that worse. He seemed angry maybe, but I couldn't be sure.

I turned back to the wolf and grumbled low, warning him back, but he only shook his head and frowned. "Please, stand down and we can talk— explain things to Rob... to your mate."

His words had finally pushed me past irritation and to fury. I wouldn't back down, not when I had just found my mate and this wolf thought to keep him from me. 

I threw out a swipe, shifting only my claws as I feinted a leap towards the wolf. He flinched back, his eyes widening. But I had no chance to celebrate my victory, because the next second I was on my ass, staring up at my mate, who now held himself protectively in front of the wolf. 

"You alright, your highness?" my mate asked, his eyes barely glancing back at the wolf before staring back down at me. 

That was unmistakably fury I smelled wafting off of my mate. Why? I had claimed him before his people, had made my intentions known, protected my claim. Why would that anger him? Was there something objectionable about me that he would deny my claim?

I stood and hissed at the wolf when I noticed his hands touching my mate's arms as my mate held them over the wolf's chest in a protective gesture that had my entire body screaming to fight for what was mine. 

"Mine!" I growled, lowering myself into a crouch. 

The wolf stepped to the side, away from my mate, and I relaxed just a bit and paused. 

"Please, you need to calm down. You're misunderstanding, and so is Robert. Just calm down, and we can discuss this. Alright?"

I glared the wolf's words down before growing impatient and stepping forward. Robert was mine, and the wolf would stand down or we would fight and he would see how powerfully a cat fought for dominance when their mate was at stake. 

I moved to my mate, staking my claim with one more hiss at the wolf, then rubbed my skin against the big man's. His entire body stiffened but he held still while I scent marked him, standing on my toes to try to scent his neck, but I wasn't able to reach. Just as I stretched to jump up, climbing his body if I had to, his hands shot out and grabbed my shoulders to hold me back. 

ROBERT—

The man's hot, naked body rubbing against my own made me stiffen in discomfort. I was surrounded by men who were married to other men, were attracted to the same sex, or both sexes. There was even a Teren noble who was born a man, but living as a woman. I had never looked at Lady Sera any differently than another woman. She just had a different path than other women, that was all. And gods, she looked good doing it. I wasn't the only man who she made question their sexuality. 

With the people I had managed to surround myself with, I should have been more comfortable with the small man's advances, but while I of course didn't think differently of the men and women I knew who had those inclinations towards the same sex, I had never been one of them. It just wasn't the way the gods had put me together. Never before had I been attracted to a man, and I wasn't about to start with this one now. I felt bad he thought I was his "fated mate," but he would have to get over that real quick and find another one, because never would I be caught dead sexually touching a man. Sucking his prick. 

Gods, the thought alone made shivers of disgust shoot up my spine. 

I allowed the touches, the wild mage obviously scent marking me the way a cat would something they thought of as a family member, but only to try to keep him from going after Edon again. Edon had tried to calm the shifter, tried to explain my inability to return his attraction and feelings, but the man had been mulishly stubborn and annoyed. 

"He thinks you're his mate, the way Lhiam is mine and Riece is Cain's," Edon explained needlessly. I looked up at him as he watched in bemusement as the small cat shifter twined around my legs and reached to grab my hand in both of his. He rubbed both cheeks back and forth across my palm. I almost laughed at the tickling sensation, but I held back and met Edon's gaze. 

"I'm not this kid's anything, Edon. Not only am I old enough to be his father, but he's a he. No offense to the rest of you, but that's never been where my attraction lay, if you catch my drift."

Edon snorted and shook his head. "Neither of you really have a choice in the matter, from what I understand of the mythos. He does seem rather... feral, though, doesn't he?"

The shifter came back around to my front and positioned himself familiarly, possessively just a bit in front of me. Edon looked around at the groups of people staring down the spectacle we had made of ourselves, and he blushed heavily at the scrutiny.

"Maybe we should try to get the naked man inside, yeah?"

Edon nodded, and moved out of my way as I began to move into the castle. Without a word, the shifter followed so closely at my heels that if I stopped suddenly he would slam into my back. I could hear Dasan and Nibley whispering, their voices tinged with amusement, and Edon shushing them before silently following me. 

I'd been friends with Dasan and Nibley for nigh on 25 years, and I knew I would never hear the end of their teasing. I'd been their staunchest supporter, even before same-sex couples began to be accepted in We'ren, but it hadn't started out that way. At one point, I was young, and stupid, and wanted to fit in with the men who jeered and bullied the two captains. 

Dasan saving my life, and realizing that he and his husband were the best men I'd ever meet had changed all that. Had completely changed the way I viewed a lot of things— same-sex relationships being the forefront. That didn't mean, however, that I was willing to entertain one personally. 

Edon took the lead and drew me and the little shifter back through the halls and up the staircases of the keep to the servant's quarters. He opened the door to one of the empty rooms where a bed, a chest, and a single chair decorated a small room. It had only one window that looked out onto the guards' training courtyard. 

It was a few hours before midnight, so it looked like Edon was hoping the kid would get some sleep and wake more willing to communicate with us and comply with our questions. 

"I'll be right back," Edon whispered, and I was left alone in the room with the small man. Though I could tell all of his senses stayed focused on me, the shifter drifted around the room. He sniffed the air, then the bed sheets, his nose twitching as he glanced back at me, then began to run his fingers along the wood of the bed frame. 

Edon was true to his word and was back before the man had finished scrutinizing the room. Edon carried a handful of clothes. Some I could see were likely his from the size, but even though Edon was a man of small stature, I wasn't sure how well the clothes would fit the diminutive man who stared the prince down as he moved around the bed and set the pile gently on the covers.

"You should dress and rest. We can talk a little more in the morning. We all need some rest, after the excitement of tonight."

The shifter looked from Edon, to the clothes, and back again before shaking his head and taking a step back. I studied the man for the first time, realizing he was clean of blood. He must have washed himself somewhere after the battle, and was cleaner than any of the others that had come back from the ambush. Because of the lack of blood, and his nakedness, I could tell he hadn't been injured, and for that I was surprised. He was the only one. Even Dasan and Nibley, fierce and skilled fighters, had returned with injuries that had needed immediate treatment. 

"Dress, kid," I grumbled, wanting to put this night behind me and sleep it off. It had been an eventful night, from Cain leaping through the gates in cougar form, to the Emperor nearly dying while still in Teren borders, to all of the imperial guards accompanying him nearly dying to protect him. 

It was a night I wanted to forget and move on from. 

The shifter met my eyes, confusion swimming in their depths, before his eyes flickered back to the clothes. He stepped towards them, fingered a few of the tops, and twisted his face in disgust. I nearly laughed as he looked up at me again and frowned dubiously. 

Gods, he looked like a spoiled cat that had been given the wrong food at mealtime. Like my family's barn cat when I was a child, who ate rats and mice with as much delicacy as he ate whatever scraps we children could sneak to him. 

Edon chuckled, and the man's nostrils flared as he bared his teeth at the prince. "I'm sorry," Edon burst out, shaking his head and raising his hands defensively. 

Rolling my eyes, I stepped to the clothes and picked up the top shirt. I held it up, gesturing with it towards the shifter as he met my eyes. Confusion turned to dawning understanding as he ducked into the shirt. I had to yank and pull at it, like wrestling a feral cat, as the man kept getting his head stuck in the arm holes, but finally his mop of curls popped up and he grinned in triumph at me, flashing gleaming, feral canines. 

Something went through me at the sight, something unnamed and dark, but I ignored it and picked up the nearest pair of breeches.

BOBCAT SHIFTER—

I'd nearly been left behind when I had paused at the entrance to the humongous human dwelling. But I wouldn't let my new mate out of my sight, so I followed him into the stone monstrosity. 

Now, he put clothes on me for the first time since I was but a child at Pa's knee. The fabric was soft but still itchy on my skin and I immediately wanted to rip it with my claws. But when my mate held out a pair of the clothes that cover the legs, I felt a thrill of excitement run through me. 

Mates were supposed to undress each other, not want to cover each other up. But my mate was willing to touch me where before he had seemed so unwilling, so I would take what I could get. Mayhap he would touch me while he helped me into the pants. My penis twitched with excitement at the thought. 

Unfortunately, he held the leg coverings out until I stepped into them before letting them fall and gesturing for me to pull them up myself. I stuck out my lower lip as disappointment became a familiar companion and I bent to lift the leggings up around my waist. 

Just to have them fall immediately back to the ground. I looked up at my mate and frowned in confusion to show I didn't understand. He rolled his eyes and, in one swift, frustratingly efficient move, yanked them back up and tied together two strings that tightened the cloth around my waist. The leggings were still loose and hung around my feet, likely to trip me up if I needed to run, but my mate seemed pleased so I preened a bit at his approval. 

Just as I opened my mouth to stake my claim again, to try to make my mate understand our connection, the bond I felt from my soul to his, a sound from behind my mate had me jerking and pushing him back so I could stand in front of him. A man about my mate's size stood in the doorway, a bowl of something steaming hot in his hands. He studied me, then my mate, before his eyes turned to the wolf.

I had nearly forgotten the wolf was in the room with me and my mate. 

The wolf moved to the man and reached up on his toes to place a gentle kiss to his lips before taking the bowl and turning back to me.

"Eat," he said, gesturing to the bowl. I cocked my head, frowning and sniffing the air. That was not food in that bowl, it was plants. Prey food. Food my food ate; not a bit of meat in it as far as I could tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***** I'm trying to make my chapters longer, so how was it? Was it ok, the switching narration, or was it confusing? Idk if it was maybe choppy. I don't have a beta, guys, so talk to me haha *****


	6. Sleeping Arrangements

ROBERT—

The shifter sniffed the air before making a huffing, irritated noise and turning his back on Edon. I rolled my eyes for what felt like the hundredth time in an hour and held my hand out for the bowl. Edon handed it to me with an amused glint in his eyes, but he didn't comment. 

I turned the kid around with a hand on his shoulder, discomfited by how delicate and bony he felt. I held the bowl out to him and his eyes flicked to it, but he didn't move to take it. 

"You need to eat, kid," I said, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. "I'd think you'd be pretty hungry, with the way your ribs stick out through your skin, yeah?" 

The shifter shook his head, his nose furrowing as he studied the vegetable broth. It was likely what Edon had asked the kitchen to prepare for the shifter because he looked starved, as if anything heartier might make him sick. 

I held the bowl up to my mouth and took a sip, closing my eyes at the touch of salt on my tongue, before meeting the shifter's eyes and motioning with the bowl again. Showing him it was edible. 

He watched my every move like I was something fascinating, then reached out and tentatively took the bowl from my hands and held it cupped in his much smaller palms. 

"Drink it, and we'll get ya some meat in the morning, yeah?"

The shifter nodded, and I was grateful he at least seemed to understand Common, even though he had only spoken less than a handful of words. And those words had been heavily accented at that. Strangely, his accent hadn't sounded Akaran. It was softer, more nasally than the deep husk of Akari. Maybe Swabi?

He took a sip and made a face. I chuckled, and his smile seemed genuine as he shrugged self-deprecatingly before beginning to slurp it back.

The shifter was finished within minutes, and he handed the bowl back to me, his fingers lingering on my palm as his eyes met mine. There was possession and heat there, but also genuine warmth and a small spark of joy. 

He was a sweet kid, if spunky and bratty enough to make me want to wring his neck. 

"Now time to get some rest," I said gently, stepping back towards the door. It wasn't until that moment I noticed Lhiam and Edon had managed to sneak away. Had I been so fixed on the shifter I hadn't heard them step away? "I'll come back in the morning to bring you to get breakfast, alright?"

The man's head cocked to the side and he shifted on his bare feet. He seemed confused, but also something else. As if he understood my words, but not their meaning.

I nodded, unsure how to say good night to a silent, unresponsive man, and moved towards the door. Though the man's bare footsteps were silent, I could tell he was following me as closely as he had on the way to the room. I turned back to him and shook my head, holding my hand out to push him back. He frowned and cocked his head, stepping even closer to me. I took a step back and shook my head again.

"Stay here. Rest. Sleep. You understand?" 

I pointed to the bed, and the man's eyes followed my finger, but then his bemused, nearly condescending gaze was back on me. He watched me as if it was I who was misunderstanding the situation.

I turned to leave again, but stopped when I once again felt him following me. This repeated for the next five minutes, with me turning him towards his bed over and over until I gave up and threw my hands in the air in frustration before stomping towards my own room at the other end of the castle where the guards were housed. 

Maybe he was ensuring I got to my room safely? Edon had told me about the protectiveness he felt towards Lhiam; the protectiveness a wild mage felt towards their mate that bordered on obsessive. So I allowed him to follow me all the way to my room. I stopped, turned to him, and tried not to grimace as he watched me expectantly. 

"I'm safe; this is my room," I said, gesturing back to the door. "You can go back to yours; get some rest, alright?"

The man's eyes crinkled in a smile, but he patiently watched me, and I could almost see his tail twitching with amusement and fascination at my antics in my mind's eye. Then I remembered bobcats didn't even _have_ tails and my irritation rose for some odd reason.

_Samire_ , I suddenly thought, my mind again flashing back to my family's cat when I was a child. That was his name. I had forgotten, as he'd died when I was still young, but now I remembered. We had called him Sami. 

And that was who this boy resembled as he stared me down with his head cocked and his eyes lidded with amusement and stubborn arrogance. 

"Fine," I grumbled, rolling my eyes and shoving my way into my room, followed closely by the shifter. 

I painstakingly set up a small cot for the shifter, though there was barely space for it in my tiny room. I retrieved the cot and extra blankets and pillows from a storage room nearby, where we kept them for visitors. The shifter observed me closely, his body relaxed and his eyes studious and prying. He watched me, every move I made, as if he had never been any happier than he was simply having his eyes on me. 

It was disconcerting, but I tried to put him from my mind. The poor man would have to get over his infatuation, and soon. I almost felt sorry for him, because there was no chance in the four hells I would ever even consider being with a man in that way. 

When the cot was laid out for him, I pointed from the man to the cot and then made a sweeping gesture toward it. 

"Sleep, kid. I'm fucking exhausted."

The man's head cocked, concern flashing through his gaze. Then his eyes flickered to the cot and he snorted. With hardly a glance in my direction, he swiftly pulled the blankets back on my bed, slipped beneath them, and curled into a tiny ball in one corner. His eyes closed, and I would have thought he was asleep but for the smirk on his lips. 

"That's great, kid. Just fucking great," I muttered. At that point, I was so exhausted I was near to just curling up and passing out on the hard stone ground. So I pulled the cot blankets back and lay down beneath them. 

My eyes snapped open a second later when I felt the uncomfortable cushion of the cot dip just slightly. I glared up and met the shifter's far-too-close gaze. 

"Fuck," I hissed, shoving myself back and away from the man when I felt his breath on my face. "Go to sleep!"

The shifter kneaded the pillow beneath him, then curled up and closed his eyes. I rolled my eyes, stood, and stomped to my own bed. 

Only to have the process repeat itself. Four more times. 

"Please kid, I need to sleep."

The concern was back in the man's gaze as he looked me up and down. His fingers clenched and unclenched before he reached forward and tenderly brushed a strand of hair from my eyes. He made a huffing, chirruping noise and I shook my head. 

"You're going to sleep where I do whether I like it or not, huh?" 

The shifter's smile was soft and pleased as he huffed in satisfaction. As if happy I had finally understood. I fell to sleep within seconds to the sound of deep, soothing purring.


	7. Sami

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Sami's such a creeper*****

ROBERT—

I woke to shuffling and wet, tickling brushes on my neck. I went to scratch the itch away and froze when my fingers touched a head of messy hair. 

I jerked, my eyes flying open, and gaped down my body. The shifter straddled my waist, his hard, swollen, disproportionately large prick leaking precum into the dark thatch of hair trailing down my stomach. He rocked against me, his eyes fluttering with pleasure, his cock sliding along my stomach, his balls smashed between our bodies. He was completely naked, and my own shirt was shoved up under my armpits, my breeches untied to give him easy access to my naked skin. 

I stared, dumbstruck, as I assessed myself. My neck throbbed where he had either sucked the skin or bitten me, I was covered in his saliva from my neck to my nipples, and to my horror my cock twitched when the shifter realized I was awake and set his hands gently on my chest to steady himself while staring deeply into my eyes. 

With him atop me like this, the dichotomy of the sizes of our bodies was amplified and I had a momentary panic. He looked only a bit bigger than a child, and the near-childlike wonder with which he was finding pleasure using my body had me tensing in discomfort and wary frustration. 

He leaned down, beginning to kitten lick my neck again as his hips rocked against me, but I shoved him back. I lifted him from my body, nearly wrestling with him as he growled and tried to climb back atop me. 

"Stop it!" I mumbled, shoving him back and grimacing when my hands were forced to grip his hot, shuddering skin. He stared me down, upset and confused, as his hips rocked mindlessly against empty air. "Take care of that on your own, kid. I like cunts, not pricks. Understand?"

The man rolled his eyes, giving up trying to climb on me again. His small hand reached down and grabbed his cock in what looked like an almost painful grip. Staring deeply into my eyes, barely blinking, he began to pump his fist in frustration, his gaze occasionally rolling up and down my body appreciatively, his eyes lingering on my prick, my morning wood peeking out from my trousers. 

My hard cock that had everything to do with just waking and absolutely nothing to do with the man who wanked himself mere inches from me while devouring me with his eyes. 

I was caught frozen, transfixed as his moans grew in frequency. He bit his lip, his eyes wide with surprise and heat as he yipped and came into his hand. His entire body jerked, his back arching, but his eyes never left mine as he whimpered and heaved through his orgasm, multiple pumps of cum covering his palm. 

"Mate," he whispered affectionately when his body fell lax. A small, satisfied smile lit his lips as he brought his fingers to them and began to clean his hand of his own spend. 

The sight caught me off guard, as did the prick of arousal and heat that jolted down my spine to pool in my balls as I watched his tongue dart out again and again to clean himself. I shoved the thoughts aside, only just realizing I'd stared him down through his entire self-pleasure orgasm when I noticed my mouth was open and I was still staring at him like an idiot. I shook my head and threw the blankets back, standing to dress before he could somehow sense how his actions had affected me. 

BOBCAT SHIFTER—

I had never before felt sexual arousal like I did when I woke and caught a deep breath of my mate's musk. It had been over a decade since I had been in my human form, and before then I was too young to have sexual urges. Now, they nearly overwhelmed me as I shoved my mate's clothes to the side to get at his hot, hard skin. I ripped my own clothes off before straddling my mate and crying out when my entire body throbbed at the contact of my mate's hot skin against my prick, balls, and taint. 

As I began to hump his body, his hard abdomen would occasionally press teasingly against my nether hole and it brought up my arousal and had me panting and licking at his skin mindlessly. 

Then he woke and, despite his own arousal, pushed me off of him. I was forced to finish myself to the sight of his body, splayed out and on display for me. I was disappointed but content, especially since the orgasm that had ripped through my every limb had left me shaking and helpless as a newborn kit. 

Flustered and red, my mate dressed, forced me to dress as he had the night before, and silently led me out of his room and through the halls of the huge human dwelling. I could soon scent food, prey food as well as meat. My stomach growled angrily at the scent and my mate smirked back at me at the sound. 

I ignored the soft whispers of the many humans around us as we entered the large room where the humans gathered to eat. There were at least a hundred of them, and my body tensed as the overwhelming scent of men, food, weapons and their leathers wafted over me. I whimpered, but luckily the sound was drowned out by the rise in noise around us as my mate led me to a table loaded with foods. 

He picked up a flat disc of tin and handed it to me, watching as I sniffed the disc and turned it over to watch it catch the light of the sun streaming in through the long windows in each wall. 

"It's a plate," my mate said, showing me how to scoop up various foods onto it, then gestured to the tables behind us. "We'll get ourselves some grub and go back to the tables to eat, yeah?"

I nodded in understanding, avoiding the prey food and sticking to the slabs of meat and the cooked yellow chicken eggs that smelled like heaven. 

My mate chuckled when he saw my plate, but he made no objections as he led me to an empty table. The whispers around us didn't stop, and I heard my mate's name multiple times, along with calling me "the bobcat," but I didn't mind. The humans' petty gossip had nothing to do with me. 

What did bother me was when a few men moved past us, stepping far too close to my mate. I hissed, baring my teeth at the men to stake my claim on my mate. He stopped, glaring back at me, as the men who had dared get too close jumped back and held their hands up in surprise and defense. 

I hissed lightly again as a last warning before sidling up to my mate and standing close enough none could mistake to whom he belonged. 

My mate rolled his eyes and shoved my shoulder. 

"Stop it. You can't hiss at anyone who gets too close. The keep is overfull and you'll never be able to relax if you do."

Then I'll spend my life on edge, I wanted to reply, but I kept quiet and followed my mate's lead again until we both sat on the bench at an empty table. 

I wanted to talk to my mate, ask him questions, learn about him, but insecurity held me back. It had been years since I had spoken, and I feared I may not even be able to, so I was too afraid to try. 

I was a coward, I know. So we began to eat in silence. I watched my mate eat mostly with a metal utensil, but also a bit with his fingers, so I dug in and ate.

ROBERT—

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the kid ate like a wild animal, but it took me a moment to stop staring as he barely even used his fingers as he devoured the bacon he had piled high on his plate. 

We ate in silence for a few minutes, the shifter tensing anytime anyone passed by. His quiet hisses warned quite a few of my fellow keep guards that they were passing too close, and I was met with many amused, confused, or annoyed looks. 

About halfway through our meal, the kid's deep-throated growl became constant and I looked up to see what had caught his attention. 

Prince Lhiam and Edon stepped to our table, and when they moved to sit the shifter's growls rose in pitch as he bared his teeth at Edon. 

"Your highnesses," I said politely, shoving my elbow into the shifter's ribs and glaring at him. "I told you to stop hissing, damn cat," I scolded. The kid sneered at me before turning back and staring Edon down silently. 

"I'm glad you're looking a little better, mage," Edon said shyly. "Did you sleep well?"

I snorted as my mind flashed to how I had woken, and the light of lust and amusement in the kid's eyes as he glanced at me let me know he was having the same thoughts. 

"The brat slept just fine," I grumbled. 

"Has he... do we know his name yet?"

"Nope. Still hasn't said another word."

Edon met the shifter's wary eyes and smiled his gentle, humble, quiet smile that usually endeared anyone who saw it to him. But the kid only growled breathily and glared in return. 

"Can you tell us your name?"

Something flashed across the boy's face, and I froze in bringing the forkful of eggs to my mouth. 

Maybe it wasn't that he didn't want to talk. Maybe he couldn't say more than a few words for some reason. 

Trauma, injury, the gods only knew what the kid had endured on his own for as long as it seemed apparent he had been. 

I felt Prince Lhiam's eyes on me and I turned to him just as he seemed to come to the same conclusion I had. And another as well: maybe the cat didn't have a name. 

"How about Samire?" I asked, meeting the kid's eyes and wanting to smile when he cocked his head in question. The gesture was quickly becoming familiar and endearing. "I had a barn cat as a kid named Samire. We called him Sami. How do you like it, kid? Sami?"

The shifter's eyes widened before he lifted his trembling hands and set them, clenched together, into his lap. He nodded once, his eyes shining, and then he was nodding near-frantically. 

"Robert," Edon whispered in horror, drawing our attention back to him. "You can't name him after your childhood pet." 

"How do you like the name, Sami?" I asked, and the boy's nostrils flared at my words. 

"Like it," he mimicked, his accent heavy as his shoulders shook, nodding and smirking that crooked, teeth-filled grin. "Like it. Sami."

Then he was turning away from me to smirk toothily, almost triumphantly at Edon. With one swift move, he was in my lap, staring Edon down and baring his teeth again. Lhiam broke out into laughter, but Edon was blushing heavily as I rolled my eyes.

Sami's arms wrapped around my neck and his feet hooked at my waist as he staked his claim and hissed lightly at Edon. 

"Mine," he growled at Edon, making the poor man's blush darken. "Mine. Mate. Mine."

"It's nice to meet you, Sami," Lhiam awkwardly cut in, trying to move the conversation away from the focus on Edon. "I'm Lhiam, and the one you're growling at is my husband and mate Edon. You're welcome here as long as you need."

The shifter sat back a bit, completely ignoring my efforts to pry him from my neck and off my lap. He studied Lhiam for a number of minutes while I futilely pried at his hooked fingers. The damn cat was a lot stronger than he looked. Finally, he nodded and relaxed a bit against me. 

"Sami," he replied, as if introducing himself to Lhiam.


	8. Bear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Guys, I just really love Sera and I'm so excited/nervous to write her book T-T *****

ROBERT—

The guards of Teren Keep kept a similar schedule as those in the Emperor's palace. We were on three month rotations— three months in the dungeon, three months on the barricades, three months in one of the outposts, three months in the training yards and armory, and for a handful of us, three months on the royal family. Any guards with families or partners were kept from the outpost rotation, except for Dasan and Nibley, for they could just go together. 

There were only about a dozen guards— me, Dasan, Nibley, Tate, of course, and eight others— who were switched out as the personal guards to Prince Lhiam, Prince-consort Edon, and Princess Lacy.

There were special events that precluded our current posts. Usually if the keep had a visitor or an emergency, we were moved around to where we best fit. 

The rotations helped keep us alert and battle-ready. We were kept from the boredom of staring at the same walls of the dungeon for the rest of our lives, there were no guards who felt they were being punished in the outposts for extended periods, and we were kept trained and ready for anything. 

I was, unfortunately, on dungeon duty when the mercenaries who survived the attack on the Emperor were brought in. There were eight, and only two had been seriously injured and were still up with Lady Sera and the doctor. 

I led Sami through the keep, stuck with him for the time being until he could better communicate and we could maybe find a job for him. I was all for sticking him in the kitchens as a dishwasher, but Lhiam had frowned at the idea. 

"We need to know his past, and go from there. How do we know he doesn't have a family out there, waiting for him? Stay close to him, Robert, and keep us updated. It will hurt the keep none to have another shifter here. They're damn useful," he joked, pulling his husband to his chest and kissing the now-pouting man's forehead. 

As I walked away from them, I heard Edon's quiet, usually gentle voice, feigning annoyance as he muttered, "I'm _useful_ , am I?"

When I reached the dungeons, both Talyk and Raider were there, waiting my and Erik's arrival. Usually the dungeons were a one-man post, but with the many mercenaries we were holding until they could be brought to the capital, the guard's captain Tate had ordered us to double up on our shifts. 

The moment we walked through the door, Sami's hackles visibly rose and he froze, his nostrils flaring. I watched him, a little bemused, a lot curious, as he crouched and moved down the dark dungeon stairs. It was only a few steps, and then he stood in front of the crowded jail cell, staring in at the men. 

"These are the men you helped capture," I said, trying to feel out the reason for his wary watchfulness. 

"Bear," he hissed, his nose poised in the air and his eyes lidded as he looked from man to man. 

"What is your pet goin' on about?" Talyk muttered, annoyed. He looked exhausted, and I couldn't blame him. After all the craziness of last night, he'd had to cover the dungeon watch night shift. 

Sami glared up at the man, hissing almost under his breath before turning to me. He met my eyes, then pointed out a man near the corner of the cell. The man was unassuming at best. Young, maybe halfway to 30, tall but kind of lean. But his eyes— now, those stood out like a house on fire. 

They were silver like a pool of mercury. 

"Bear," Sami repeated when I finished studying the man. 

The man's nostrils flared but he made no move to deny nor accept Sami's claim. The other mercenaries seemed confused, only a few catching on and glaring the man down.

"Hey Raider," I called, meeting the man in the cell's eyes and not backing down when they seemed to flare a little. "Go up to Lady Sera, see if she's got any proti collars. Looks like we're gonna need one."

A proti collar was a magic-blocking collar, _proti_ meaning something like _anti_ in the language of the gods. An _anti-magic_ collar. Dasan and Nibley had taught me about them when we came across a slave once who wore one. He was a hedge witch, his power to heal blocked by the collar. Dasan had told me the metal of the collars came from a mountain range in hell itself, but I never was sure how truthful that man was being. He loved his pranks, especially when he can get away with tricking you for an extended period of time. 

The mercenary Sami had pointed out stood and stomped to the front of the cage. 

"Look, uh, sir, I don't know what the kid's talking about. I'm not—" 

"—Bear!" Sami growled, and the man hissed down at him in annoyance, the sound coming out as a growl from deep in his chest. 

Not a human growl. 

"Fuck," the man grumbled, then his eyes met mine as the men around him began to stir. "You want me alive for my trial, you let me the fuck outta here."

I studied the men around him— five mercenaries that had almost killed Cain, and likely Sami too, if his being nearby and willing to go after them was any indication— and snorted, shaking my head. 

"Erik, keys," I said, catching them when he threw them towards me. I could hear the soft snick! of multiple swords being drawn behind me as I put the correct key into the slot. I looked around the room at the tense, bristling men and set my face into a hard glare. 

"This kid may look small, but he took most'a you down, remember. Plus, we've got weapons. Don't fucking move, hear me?"

The men grumbled but moved back a little. I opened the door and grabbed the bear shifter's arm, yanking him out and shoving him towards the single cell on the other side. It was small— barely six feet on either side— but he would be safe. 

"Get in," I said, pushing him towards the cell. He clutched his stomach as if wounded and turned to me when he was inside the cell, watching as I slammed it shut on him. "Don't cause any problems until we get the proti collar, got it? We've got two cats who will beat your injured ass if you do."

I didn't want to mention one was nearly small as a house cat, and the other was in bed wounded, so I let the threat stand. The man didn't seem to notice. 

During my shift, Sami was silent and watchful. His eyes never left the bear shifter, who squirmed uncomfortably under the cat's stare. He seemed to want to complain about the attention a few times, but a glare from me kept him quiet. 

Only a few hours after we started our shift, Lady Sera made her way down the steps of the dungeon. I wanted to snap at her for coming down at all, the looks in the eyes of each of the men in the cell lighting with lust and hunger, but she kept her head held high and met my eyes with a gentle smile. 

"I've come to take a look at Sami, if he's alright with that," she said, her soft, nearly musical voice making shivers dance down my spine. Gods, she was beautiful. Tall, lithe, with a soft face and eyes that shone with compassion and kindness, no matter what she was doing or saying. She'd only been living in Teren Keep full time for a handful of months, and already most of the guardsmen were halfway in love with her and her gentle eyes. 

Most didn't know she was born a man, and I wasn't going to be the one to tell them. It wasn't as if they had any chance with her anyways. Lady Sera was nothing if not kind, but she was also reticent and I'd never seen her show an interest in anyone romantically— man or woman. She was warm and kind, but there was a coldness behind her eyes. A wall she put up that none but a few— Cain, Prince Lhiam— could even go near. But even they couldn't pass it. 

It was occasionally amusing, though, to watch the same men whom I'd just overheard talking about Dasan and Nibley, or Lhiam and Edon, with disgust in their tones then start a conversation about how beautiful Lady Sera was. 

Sami stood and moved to the woman, his gaze assessing, and then he was smiling gently but with confusion. He sniffed the air, cocking his head. 

Then his hands were gripping her dress in his fists and his nose was pressed right up against her chest and I nearly choked as I kicked the chair I'd been sitting on back to lunge at him. 

"Fucking hell, Sami!" I growled, grabbing him by a handful of curly hair and yanking him back. "What the hell are you doing?"

A couple of the men in the cells hooted and catcalled, urging Sami to grab her ass, lift her skirts for them to see. Erik slammed his baton against the cell bars and most of the din died down. 

Lady Sera seemed shocked, her eyes meeting mine, and then she turned back to the bratty cat in my grip. 

"Oh, it's alright, Robert. Let him go, please," she said, her words soft and pained. Her hands reached toward the shifter hesitantly, but then she pulled them back. As if she was fighting her initial urge to soothe his hurts. 

Sami looked up at me, his eyes wide and wet when I let him go. He rubbed at his head and pouted his lips out, making me want to roll my eyes at the pouting expression in his eyes.

"I think..." Lady Sera paused, looked behind her at the men in the cell, and then back at me. "Can we talk outside, please?"

The men in the cell began to boo and call at Lady Sera to stay, but she didn't even flinch as she turned, her pretty pink and white dress swishing around her legs as she made her way out of the dungeon. I followed behind, motioning for Sami to follow. He did, albeit dejectedly, all but curling into himself as he pouted at me. 

"I think he smelled... me," Lady Sera said delicately when I had closed the door to the dungeon behind me. I turned to her, confused, only to see a defiant-faced Sami holding her arm in his hands, his nose pressed right up against her wrist. 

"Godsdamnit, Sami—" I began, taking one step forward, but Lady Sera cut me off with a wave of her hand. 

"It's alright. He doesn't mean any harm. It, ah, tickles a little, but nothing more." She giggled when Sami pulled away, only to gently tug her shoulder until she bent towards him and he smelled her neck, the breaths against her skin making visible gooseflesh ripple down her arms. 

"You know my past, Robert. Cain told me once that I was a... unique experience, let's say, for wild mages. According to him, mages can sort of sense souls? And he said my body smells male, but my soul is that of a woman. It made me very... happy, to be honest," she whispered, blushing and no longer meeting my eyes. "But that must be what Sami is smelling. I don't mind, really. He's not hurting me. And I've been apprised of his... ah, attachment to you. I'm worried about him being inappropriate not at all."

"Him sniffing you all over _is_ inappropriate," I grumbled, but then sat back and watched as Sami smelled his fill of her hair, her hands, her skirts, and then pulled away and snorted, then smiled. 

"Robert mate," he said, his voice almost proud as he gestured to me. As if he was... showing me off?

"Yes, well," Lady Sera began, refusing to meet my eyes. "Would you like to come with me, Sami? I'd like to look you over and ensure you're alright."

"Mate," Sami replied, grabbing my arm and tugging me to him. 

"No, Robert has to stay. It's his job to guard the dungeons down there," Lady Sera explained kindly, patiently. "But he'll be here when we're done. You're safe with me, Sami. And Robert is safe. The bad men are behind bars, and I've heard some stories about his battle prowess, so I wouldn't worry too much about him."

Sami looked up at me, as if asking my permission, and I nodded and motioned to Lady Sera. 

"She's gonna make sure you're not hurt anywhere. Go with her, kid. I'll be here. I'm not goin' anywhere."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meet Griffin (the bear shifter) :):):):)


	9. Sweet Treat

SERA—

The cat shifter's hands and nose were on everything within reach. The herbs hanging from the ceiling of my workroom, the stacks of books and scrolls that filled every corner, the poultices and potions that sat in neat rows on my shelves or in my cupboards. I kept an eye on him with those, in case he got into one that would hurt him, but he was quick to move on. 

The boy was adorable— well, man. The _man_ was adorable. His growth was stunted by malnutrition throughout his formative years, that I could tell by first glance. But from the look of his skin and the beat of his heart, the wear in his soul, he was older than my two decades by at least a handful of years. 

His eyes were huge and multi-colored, his skin a strange mix of tan and pale I couldn't quite put my fingers on, and his hair a nest of curls on his head. 

He was also god-touched. I could see Ravin's mark on him, glowing like a brand. _Don't touch_ , it warned. _I am beloved of my goddess_. 

I smiled and gently led the boy to the table I used for examinations, helping him to sit before turning to stoke the fire to life. This workroom had belonged to Doctor Gerard for the last 45 years, and he had filled it with knowledge and healing and science. Now that he had retired two months before, I was adding onto the science with my magic. The tomes of poultices and potions lying alongside his medicines. His scrolls of science and anatomy resting beside my crystals and charms. 

I'd taken his place with a heavy heart, knowing I was filling the shoes of a man who'd been in his position so long he'd brought many of the people who lived in the keep into this world, but I'd taken the position without a backwards glance. My father knew I could never take my place as Duke of Ruleden from when I was a small child. He'd always known I was different, he told me, but he'd thought I would just be one of those boys who liked other boys. He could handle that, deal with it, move past it. A "boy who wears dresses," however. That he had a hard time abiding. 

I didn't begrudge Papa. He did the best he could with a hard life full of tragedy, and he loved me, in his way. Mama died during childbirth, trying to give Papa another babe, and she was his whole heart and his whole world. He was left with a son who had been born into a body that never fit right. A body that boy wanted to change as soon as humanly— or inhumanly— possible. A body that felt near-physical pain when the soul looked out of male eyes and saw a male body in the looking glass. 

Sami remained silent as I stoked the fire up, and then I turned back to him and motioned at his pants. 

"Can you take your clothes off? I need to do a physical examination."

The shifter seemed to understand, because he immediately had both shirt and trousers in a heap on the ground, and he was back up on the examination table, staring me down, his head cocked in question. Not even a hint of shame or embarrassment for his nakedness in his expression.

As I moved around him, following the bones beneath his skin with practiced fingers, tracing scars, listening to his heart and his breaths, he followed my every move with touches of his own. He seemed fascinated with me, and I smiled as I remembered the first time Cain had seen me. He too had stared at me strangely, but he'd been much more closed off than this man. He'd kept glancing over at me, and when I'd found out about his cat, he'd explained about the dichotomy in my soul and body. 

The jarring strangeness I fought with daily. The wrongness I was born with, that I would bear for the rest of my life. 

His touches may have discomfited me normally, but they were as innocent as could be— I could sense it. This man would never even look at another that wasn't his mate. 

As I examined him, he squirmed and giggled a few times, drawing a laugh from me. Gods, he was sensitive and ticklish. He had various scars, many that looked like claw or bite marks, and his left leg had been broken and healed well at some point in the last five years or so. There was very little scar tissue around the bone, as far as I could tell, and I knew he had his magic to thank for that, for I was sure he hadn't treated it or even likely splinted it. 

"Do you know how long you've been in your cat form before now?" I asked him when I pulled away to put a vitamin serum together. He needed to put on weight, needed nutrients and vitamins he was sorely lacking, and I could help with that. 

I let my magic pour from my fingers into the herbs as I cut and crushed them, adding them together fluidly. It was one of my most common serums, and one of my favorites, if only for the smell. 

The man made a strange kind of strangled sound, as if something got caught in his throat, and I turned to look back at him. 

"That's alright, if you don't know," I said as my hands continued to work. 

Sami's eyes met mine, and I saw the answer there. He really didn't know how long it had been since he'd been among humans or in his human form. 

"You're likely around 24 or 25, so do you remember how old you were when you last remember being human?"

Sami's brow furrowed, and then he shrugged and held up both hands. His left one, he pulled down two fingers, so he was holding three up, and his right he kept held out with five.

"Eight? You were eight?"

He shrugged again and then nodded. 

_Dear gods, 17 years on his own_.

"That's good, Sami, thank you," I replied with a smile as I began to pour the herbs into the boiling water and then slipped the liquid back into the pestle. He returned my smile, his much brighter than my own, and I held back another laugh. "I can tell you understand me, so you must speak Common. I think we shouldn't push your voice, and you'll be able to talk just as soon as you're ready. How does that sound?"

Sami's smile faltered just a little, but then he nodded and shrugged. 

"You're malnourished," I said when I finished the serum and stepped back to Sami. "Drink a sip of this with every meal, eat lots— vegetables and meats and breads— and drink lots of water, alright? I'll check in on you every few days, if that's alright?"

Sami nodded and took the vial, then jumped down from the examination table. He began to move to the door, but I laughed and called him back. 

"Sami!" I called. "Get dressed first!"

Gods, this castle was entertaining, to say the least. From its wild mages to its persistent, precocious, _exhausting_ little princesses, to its acceptance of those most of the rest of the world shunned, I was proud to now call this place home. 

SAMI—

The woman with the man's body was kind and gentle and reminded me just a little of Ravin. They had the same sorta cold, sweet spirit hidden behind a wall of marble. Except Ravin had had a core of pure, unmerciful, unbending steel that the healer woman didn't have. The healer was a little sad, a little alone, and smelled of pain deep inside. Her soul smelled of a woman, and that woman was a little bit trapped beneath her skin, her screams almost audible as she examined me. I nearly flinched a few times when she met my eyes, because I could see the woman, perpetually trapped inside her body, and I didn't think there was anything I or anyone could do to help her. 

She was so very alone. 

There was something just there, beside her heart. A mark, maybe. Like mine I got from Ravin all those years ago. The one I couldn't see, but I could feel. The one Marlin told me about when he brought me out of Ravin's Forest. 

It was a little mark, faint, but it was there. Was she one of Ravin's chosen? Did she have a wild mage mate, someone who would see the woman screaming inside and hold her close and love her, accept her the way she would accept them and the beast in their soul? 

I hoped so. She was my new favorite human, besides my Robert. She was kind and gentle, she smelled like peace and flowers, and she gave me candy. 

I sucked on the sugary treat— the first I'd ever tasted, and it was worth the examination where she touched me all over and made me squirm 'cause her cold fingers were ticklish— as I made my way back to my Robert. She'd told me she could take me back to him, but I shook my head no, she didn't need to. I could find my Robert with my eyes closed and my ears and nose plugged. The tugging on my heart and the one on my soul brought me back to him. 

When I came back into the dungeon, my Robert looked up and smiled just a little when he saw me. And that made my heart do a weird little flippy thing. I pulled the candy from my mouth, my cheeks hot, and I knew they were red as berries as I held the candy out. 

_It's good_ , I wanted to tell him. _Sweet and good and sugary and tasty._

But I wasn't comfortable with my words yet. I was afraid I'd try to talk and all that would come out was mewling, so I stayed quiet and just held the candy out. My mate studied my hand before grimacing and shaking his head no. 

"That's alright, kid," he said, a funny look on his face. I frowned and hissed at the man behind him, who was laughing at me, his hand held over his mouth. The damn bear was laughing too. I was sharing a sugary candy with my mate, sharing my food with him like a good mate does; why was that funny?

I growled at the bear, glaring him down and crouching down to a fighting stance. Stupid bear was wearing a collar now, and I knew I'd win that fight now that his beast was locked away. My Robert put his hand on my shoulder, pulling my attention back to him, and he smiled. A funny sort of little smile. Like his mouth sorta forgot how to do it and he was having to teach it all over again. 

"Alright, I'll take the... uh, slobbery candy. Thank you, Sami." 

I watched my mate as he took the candy from my fingers, holding it away from him a little. I cocked my head, confused why he wasn't eating it. 

_It's really good_ , I wanted to promise him. _The pretty healer woman gave it to me. I like her. She's a good human. I hope her mate is a cat. She'd make a good cat-mate_. 

But I didn't say any of this. I only watched my mate as he seemed to kind of sigh before putting the candy in his mouth. I stood near him where he sat in a little chair, so I was at his height, a little above him actually, able to watch every move of his mouth, every emotion, from right near him. It was a new way to see him— kind of like when he'd been asleep and I'd studied his entire body and his face up real close. Normally, my mate is so much taller than me he's too far away for me to really get a good look at him unless I climbed up onto him. I don't think he'd like that though. He'd probably yell out "dammit Sami!" and be angry and push me away. He'd be angry, even though I'm his mate and his body is supposed to be mine, just like mine is his.

 _Mine, mine, mine_ , my cat and body screamed. 

Now my mate was awake, unlike the last time I'd been up this close, and looking back at me and Ravin help me, my mate was real pretty. The lines around his lips and eyes made him look happy, and I knew they meant he'd spent much of his life laughing. And the little bits of scruff on his cheeks and chin made me want'a rub up against him and pur. 

"Mmm," my mate said, smiling in that little way again and nodding as he licked and sucked the candy into his mouth. The sight had my penis plumping as I stared, his thin lips pursed around the sugary treat the way I wanted it around my penis. Tasting the candy and twisting it around his mouth the way I wanted him to do to me. Goddess, to any part of me he wanted. I wasn't real picky. 

I whimpered a little. I didn't mean to, it just kinda came out all whiny-like, and my mate frowned in confusion, his eyes moving down my body, as if looking for what hurt me. Then his eyes flickered to my groin, where I think my penis was twitching a little, and back up to stare into my eyes. I don't know what he saw there, but I don't think it was anything good 'cause he looked away and his face was real red. It wasn't a mating arousal that made him red, it was something else. Something I didn't understand. A dark, unhappy emotion. Not anger. Not sadness. 

Goddess, humans were confusing. 

I moved just a little closer to him, my body fitting snugly between his comfortably stretched legs. My mate's nostrils flared at the move of my body to stand just within inches of his hot skin. I stared right there, right at his sticky-sweet lips, and panted a little, trying to figure if my Robert would let me taste the candy from his mouth. How much better would it be now, sweetened even more by the taste of my mate? He'd been so angry this morning, when he woke to me pleasuring myself using his body. Using his body to climax for the first time in my life. But maybe that was only because he had been asleep? Maybe he would be alright, touching me and loving me, tasting and biting and goddess, _anything_ , now that he was awake and I was awake and we could take our time learning each other's most sensitive places. 

"Gods, Robert, that's nasty. Take it somewhere else, will ya?" the other guard grumbled, and I snorted and growled at the man. 

"How about you keep your eyes on the prisoners and off'a me, Erik, and then you won't be bothered by what I do," Robert said firmly, but he pulled away from me, and there was shame in his smell now. Shame and anger and sadness.


	10. Be Patient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****GUYS GUYS GUYS I found it. I found Sami and Robert's song. Listen to Something Wild by Lindsey Stirling T-T T-T*****

ROBERT—

Sami stayed nearly silent the rest of the day, curled up near my feet. Every once in a while, he would wake, look around confusedly, then glance up at me. He would huff a little, make a nearly disgusted face, then lie down again, his back to me. 

He was a kitten pouting, having been denied a treat. And the idea had me wanting to chuckle at his antics. Gods, the kid was never boring, I supposed. 

When my shift was relieved, I dragged Sami down to Dasan and Nibley's cottage, which was just a ways away from the keep walls. It was a cozy, small space, but it was all theirs, and I had to fight a little bit of envy for their having it. Guards with families were given the spattering of cottages, or suites in the keep, while the single men were housed in the barracks beside the keep, or the small, single rooms inside the castle. I had one of the rooms inside the walls of the castle, in the barracks wing, and I'd been meaning to speak to Prince Lhiam about maybe getting a cottage to myself. The gods knew I wasn't likely to marry at this point, and I didn't want to live out my days, and the gods forbid, my retirement, among the young men in the barracks. 

Sami shifted into his cat from one step to the next, leaving behind a pile of Edon's clothes the prince-consort had given him. I rolled my eyes, stopped, and turned back for the pile. I gathered them up, glaring down at the cat, before continuing on. 

Both Dasan and Nibley had been injured in the ambush the day before, so they had a few weeks of medical leave, per Lady Sera. Neither was seriously injured, but they'd fought hard and exhausted themselves and needed the rest. 

A few weeks, Lady Sera had said, but I knew my old friends. Dasan would be chomping at the bit in boredom within a handful of days, Nibley only a little behind him, annoyed at Dasan more than anything else. 

"Robert!" Nibley called when I came into view of their cottage. They sat on rocking chairs on their porch, watching the water of the lake beside their cottage lap at the shore, a cup of tea in Nibley's big hands, a jug of mead in Dasan's. 

"Oh gods, yes!" Dasan whooped, excited beyond what I thought he should be just from seeing me. "I'm bored as hell, Robert! Entertain me!"

I chuckled and shook my head, coming up on the men and sitting on the steps leading up to their chairs. Sami pattered up hesitantly, his huge eyes studying me, then the big men behind me.

"Ah, you brought your new... friend," Nibley said, his gruff voice almost sweet as he waved at the cat at my feet. Sami sat on his haunches, watching us but making no move to show he understood. 

"Can't really get rid of him," I muttered with a roll of my eyes. And then, "You have dinner yet?"

"We're invalids," Dasan whined, his eyes big and bright with pleading. "We're starved 'cause you've been neglecting our care in this, our time of great need. Some friend you are."

I scoffed. "You whiny child. It's a wonder you're still alive, if those little injuries are keeping you from eating."

"We just haven't gotten around to supper yet," Nibley explained with an eye roll. "You and the cat should stay and eat with us."

"Sami," I said without thinking, making both Dasan and Nibley freeze in place, both raising their brows at me in question. "It didn't seem like he had a name, so I gave him one," I finished with a shrug, praying to any gods listening that I wasn't blushing like a little girl. 

The way I had reacted to Sami's offer of candy... scared me. I was confused at the way his little sounds, pulled up from the very pit of his belly, had made my own stomach clench, low down beneath my belly button. Clench and roil and tighten. He'd gotten up close, as close as he could without our skin touching, and simply stared at my lips. Stared and breathed deeply, almost hyperventilating, his pupils blown wide, his mouth open on a little gasp. Yet I could almost hear his thoughts running a mile a minute as he licked his lips, his panting breaths hitting the sensitive skin of my mouth with hot little tufts. 

"And he's... are you...?" Dasan began, but Nibley must have seen something on my face or sensed something in the way my entire body tensed, because he stood abruptly and motioned to his husband to quiet him. 

"C'mon, lets get some meat on. The poor thing's half-starved."

SAMI—

My mate's friends were kind, but they watched me funny all night. I didn't shift back into my human form, though my mate had brought my clothes along. My mind was a little tired, and my cat mind made things simpler. Kinda calmer, in a way. My mate's actions, his rejections, were wearing on me, and I needed some time to think. 

The three big men spoke of various things as they laughed and joked and prepared supper. They made meat and a big bowl of prey food. When everything was ready, Nibley looked down at me with a small frown and motioned to the tin plate he held, piled high with food. 

"You gonna eat with us, Sami?" he asked, his voice soft-like— strange on such a big, strong man. Not to mention, I'd seen him and his mate fighting the hunters, and I knew they were possibly the most powerful humans I'd ever met. Their steps had been sure, their swords held in hands used to the weight of the steel, and their movements, nearly dancing around each other, were practiced with the kind of expert steps that told of years fighting by the other's side. 

I made a small noise and moved to Nibley's feet, and his face did a strange twisting thing, like he smelled something strange— not something bad, like rotten rabbit meat left in the sun too long, just kinda something that caught his nose and made him sniff twice— but then he set the plate on a little chair near the fire. 

"There. At least it's a little elevated, and I don't feel like we're making you eat off the floor."

"Eat the greens, Sami," my mate said sternly from the table as he lifted utensils to cut his meat up. I glared up at him but he only returned my look. "Don't think Lady Sera didn't tell me you need to eat— and more than just meat."

I huffed in confusion and my mate snorted. "She came when you were asleep, a little after noon. Brought a vial of some tonic too. She said she gave you some, but you must have lost it in the interim between her workshop and the dungeon." 

It didn't smell very good, like prey food and spicy, so I poured it into a little bush I passed on my way back to my mate after I left Sera behind. 

"Here," my mate said, holding the little vial up. "You want to just take a little, or you want it on your food?"

I growled at my mate as he moved towards me, but he only rolled his eyes and pulled the top off the vial. 

"Yeah yeah," he muttered, and then he was touching my chin and all my thoughts sorta scattered. He was so warm— hot, Ravin help me, so hot against me— his eyes kind and focused as he put the vial to my muzzle. I let him tilt my head back, and the liquid trickled down my throat. It tasted like dirt and something sweet, though the smell still made me wrinkle my nose. Then my mate was patting my head, right between my ears, making me purr unconsciously. 

"You'd make a good daddy, Robert," Dasan teased when my mate turned back to the table, both of the men watching Robert as if he'd just done something strange, but Nibley smacked his mate's arm and made a strange, angry sort of face at him. 

"I'm glad you're taking care of him. He doesn't seem like he's had that much, in his life— someone to care for him. And you understand him on a level..." Nibley stopped talking, like he was afraid he was gonna make my Robert angry with his words. His eyes flickered to me, then my mate, then back again. "You reply to him like he's talking to you. It's..."

My mate's face and neck burned red, but I felt joy only that he was taking care of me. Because Nibley was right— I hadn't had that in many, many years. Not since the Master took my parents away from me. 

Nibley's words made me realize that my mate was caring for me, but I'd done nothing yet to prove my worth to him. I'd shown him I could protect him many times, had declared my intent to claim him, but I hadn't yet shown him how I could provide for him. Maybe that was why he was still denying me. 

"I'm sure Prince Lhiam wouldn't take the charges out of your pay," Nibley explained to something my Robert had said, and I tuned back into the conversation, because I'd heard my name just a moment before. "Just go to Laya'la and ask her to make him out a couple of outfits. Make them sturdy, yeah, 'cause I have a feeling he'll be, ah, rough with them."

"I'm not worried about the cost, I'm just afraid it would be a waste of time and money," my mate replied. "Not only would he lose it all— he just shifts at random, and I feel like we'd find little piles of his clothes all around the castle— but the gods only know how long he'll actually be around."

Dasan and Nibley exchanged a glance, and I could almost see what they weren't saying. They smelled like the big cougar, and I knew they were part of his pride, so they must understand what my mate didn't: I'd never leave his side, unless he forced me away. And even then, I'd stay nearby to keep him safe only. 

Did my Robert plan on denying my claim to him?

"He thinks you're his mate, right?"

Robert's hand on his eating utensil tightened until it kinda turned white. 

"I'm not interested in men, Dasan," my mate replied with a tense kind of rage behind his lips. "So it doesn't really matter what the kid thinks."

I chuffed a little, trying to swallow the bite I'd just taken. But it got stuck in my throat and I pushed away from my food, going over to lay at my mate's feet. Humans were confusing. Why was my mate denying our connection? Did being human mean he didn't feel it, maybe? But he took such care of me. He gave me food and fed me medicines and smiled when he saw me. He must feel something of the bond. 

Mustn't he?

"I'm just saying," Dasan continued stubbornly, watching me at my mate's feet with sadness in his eyes. "If he thinks you're his mate, that's kind of it for them, y'know? From what I've learned from Edon and Cain, so long as you don't push him away completely, deny the bond wholly, he'll be by your side. No matter what. And, I don't know, Robert, are you sure you don't want to try to—"

"Fucking hell, Dasan," my mate grumbled, pushing away from the table and making me jump up and away from him as he stomped away. "You think I can just flip a switch and suddenly four decades of attraction to _women_ will disappear? I'll suddenly like cock?"

"Stranger things have happened," Dasan answered, and my mate growled. 

"No, they haven't," my mate growled angrily. "Could you just turn it off? Be attracted to women suddenly?"

"Fate doesn't work that way, Robert," Nibley replied with a patient sigh. "You're mates, which means—"

"I know what it means, and it's bullshit. I'm not a fucking fa—" My mate stopped, freezing and staring, wide eyed, at his friends. "I didn't... I didn't mean that."

Nibley looked a little sad, but Dasan only shrugged. "You're a good man, Robert. But you were taught to think a certain way from a young age, like most men in this Empire. You've come a long way, taught yourself a new way of thinking, and Nibs and I, we count you as our brother and closest friend. We understand being close to us hasn't always been easy—" 

"— No, I—" 

"—Let me finish, Robert," Dasan said, his voice like metal and liquid— bending but with an unbreakable backbone. "Trust me when I say we _understand_. We've fought tooth and nail, every day since we made it known who we were to each other, just to live and love in peace. And you not wanting to fight that fight? Believe you me, I _understand_. I wasn't so excited at the prospect of it, either."

"I didn't mean to... I shouldn't have even thought that word—" 

"— It's forgotten; you were upset. We shouldn't have pushed. We just want you to be happy, Robert, and you've been alone a long time. Just do me a favor, for my peace of mind— try and don't push away the idea that maybe you've been waiting all this time for your other half to find his way to you. Just think about it."

My mate refused to look at me, but his tiny nod to his friends had my heart soaring. 

Robert left a little while later, after the men had cleaned up after their dinner. The tone of their conversation had changed to lighter things, and before he left, Robert was laughing and joking again. 

My mate, like always, left without a look back at me. I began to follow him out the door, but I was stopped by Nibley's voice. 

"Sami?" Nibley called, and I turned back to him, cocking my head in question. "Be patient with him. He's been alone for a long time, and you're... you're something he never could have expected."

I froze and stared up at Nibley, my eyes wide. Ravin's words, all those years ago, slipped through my mind, so very close to Nibley's now.

_"Be patient with him, little one. You're not what he's expecting in a mate."_


	11. Trust

ROBERT—

I woke after a night with Sami sleeping on my pillow, his little purrs lulling me into a deep sleep, his body so near I could feel his heat wafting from him. The night before, after dinner with Dasan and Nibley, I'd sat him down and warned him if I ever woke the way I had that morning again I would lock him out of the room, and he had somberly agreed to behave and keep his hands and his damn cock to himself. I knew he understood. I could feel it. 

But then I woke with his prick so near my face, I could smell his precum as he worked his cock and whimpered, his eyes moving up to meet mine just as his body arched and he caught his release in his palm. 

I sat up with a sigh, and had a horrible feeling it would become habit I'd just have to learn to ignore. But as long as he kept his hands to himself, he could do what he wanted. It was a line I drew in my mind— as long as he was only near me, not actually touching me, I wasn't involved. 

Even if he was obviously using me as his material to get himself off. 

I just wouldn't think about that. 

After breakfast, where I again forced Sami to drink a mouthful of the serum Lady Sera had given me for him, I dragged him to Laya'la, the keep's head seamstress. And because the gods hated me, Silvia was there. Likely visiting her wife. 

Silvia and her wife Emma had moved to Teren shortly after word got around that Prince Lhiam was marrying a man. Silvia was a wild hedge witch— a hedge witch, but for animals— and her wife Emma was a talented seamstress. She had quickly become a favorite of Laya'la, and rumor had it, the sweet young woman was on Laya'la's mind as a replacement when she retired in a few years. 

I didn't know many details, but I knew the women had faced persecution in their old home for their marriage, and had been welcomed, like many others who flocked to him, by Prince Lhiam. 

The issue I had about seeing them wasn't with the women. Silvia was terrifying and powerful in her stoic, strong determination, and Emma was sweetness incarnate. 

The issue was, I hadn't known they were married when they first moved to Teren, and made my interest in Emma known within minutes of her stepping off of her horse. 

Her wife took an instant dislike to me, and hadn't grown any warmer in the months since. 

"Silvia," I said in greeting as Sami sniffed at the air, scenting the woman with a frown. I wonder if she smelled differently than humans, with the magic in her veins. If maybe her connection to animals made her smell familiar to him. 

"Robert," she replied, her voice stern and annoyed at just the sight of me. 

"Hello Robert," Emma said from behind her wife, her voice high-pitched and nearly too-sweet in its innocence. "What brings you here today?"

"The cat—" I began, before coughing and starting again. "This is Sami. I'd like to have him measured and a couple of suits outfitted for him? They'd need to be sturdy— don't ask— and able to withstand, ah, heavy use."

"He's the bobcat shifter?" Silvia asked, her eyes on Sami rather than me, her expression curious. 

"He is," I replied, shrugging a little. I'd been unsure how much had actually gotten around about what Sami was. It seemed I had my answer. 

"It's nice to meet you, Sami," Silvia said, her hand held out to the man. Sami studied her hand, then held out his hand in a copy of hers, awkwardly holding it beside yours. "He's feral," Silvia said conversationally as she moved her own hand to grip Sami's, showing him how to shake her hand. 

"He's been alone nearly two decades, according to Lady Sera," I answered with a shrug. "But he's smart— understands everything we say, he just doesn't speak much yet."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sami," Emma said from the chair she sat on, surrounded by a great blanket she was working on. 

Sami nodded at the small woman and sniffed the air towards her once before turning back to Silvia. 

"You smell the wild magic in me, Sami?" Silvia asked quietly, and Sami nodded, then shook his head, his confusion apparent. "I'm a wild hedge witch, not a mage. I can't take an animal's form, but I heal them," she explained, her words softer, kinder than I'd ever heard them, except when she was speaking to her wife. 

Emma set the blanket aside, carefully poking her needle into the fabric to mark her place, then moved to Sami. Her pretty blue dressed framed a petite body with full breasts and a trim waist. I'd been captivated by the woman since the first moment I saw her, and even now, knowing her wife was glaring me down, I couldn't help the small uptick in my heartbeat, the quickening in my breath as she came near. 

"I'm the only one here today," Emma said apologetically. "Normally we like to have Brent measure the men, but I don't mind if Sami doesn't."

"Honestly, ma'am, I don't think this is gonna be easy, man or woman," I replied with a rueful smile. "But let's give it a shot."

Emma held her hand out to Sami and it only took him a moment, staring her down, then her hand, then back to her face, before he put his hand into hers. There was something jarring about the sight of his hand in hers— his was smaller, his fingernails long and ragged beside her neatly groomed fingers, his dirt-stained beside her pale white skin. They were nearly the same size, the small man and petite woman, but their differences were vast. 

I shook my head, my confusion at comparing them giving me a headache, and followed behind as Emma led Sami over to a little dais in front of a set of mirrors. She pointed up the steps and Sami took the few steps up until he was maybe a foot taller than the woman. 

Sami looked over at me, his smile widening as I stepped up to him. I couldn't explain how, but somehow I knew what his excitement stemmed from. 

We were nearly the same height. 

He held his hand out and I instinctively moved forward, stopping myself when I realized what I was doing, and only smiled at him to show my understanding of his excitement. 

Then Emma was beside him, a measuring string in her hands, and she reached for his arm. He hissed at her, his eyes darkening as he turned from me violently to fend the woman off. He crouched, his hand swiping out in a hooked claw, barely missing her face by an inch, the other arm held out to push me back behind him. 

"Sami!" I yelled, at the same moment Silvia cried out, shoving her wife behind her back and glaring Sami down. 

"You lash out at my woman again, I'll gut you, mage," Silvia spit out, her words hard, violence edging each word. 

Emma made a small sound from behind her wife, but didn't move away from the protection of her bigger body.

Sami looked at me, a little confused, just the smallest bit remorseful, and very much afraid. 

"She's not going to hurt you, kid," I said gently. He'd reacted badly to most people, hissing and growling if they got too near, but I'd let my guard down because of the way he'd immediately been compliant with Lady Sera. And I hadn't realized he was as uncomfortable with people touching and being near him as he was them being near me. 

"She's going to measure you for your own clothes," I explained, keeping my voice even and steady, trying to calm him down. I should have explained this before, I had realized too late. I hadn't even considered the idea that he hadn't ever had a seamstress measure him for clothing. It was such an everyday, common thing for me, for most anyone, really, it hadn't even come up in my mind as something he may not understand. 

"I won't hurt you, Sami." Emma repeated my words, her tone mimicking mine as she peeked out from behind her wife. "I apologize, I should have asked before I touched you. I'll just touch you to measure you, if that's alright?"

Sami shook his head, looking even smaller as he turned to me again and shook his head nearly frantically. 

"Sami, you need clothes, kid," I said pleadingly, trying to make him understand. But I feared he did understand and, for whatever reason, couldn't abide the touch of another. "You let Lady Sera touch you. Why is Emma different?"

Sami's eyes flickered, and I could nearly see the answer on his lips, at the back of his tongue, but it didn't come. He only looked at me and shook his head, turning his back pointedly on the two women. 

"Oh, that's alright," Emma said, forced lightness in her tone. "You'll let Robert touch you though, right?"

Sami nodded, still not looking at her. His fingers twisted in the edge of my tunic near my belly in a nervous gesture, as if to calm himself, and I wondered how long he'd been doing it, and how I hadn't noticed until then. 

"Robert, I can tell you how, if you want to take the measurements. I'll record them down, and we'll get it that way. Sound good?"

I tried to catch Sami's eyes, but he resolutely kept his gaze on his fingers, twisting in and out of my tunic. Emma quietly reassured her wife as I watched Sami, and got the woman to calm down after Sami's outburst. 

"Alright," I replied, wanting to roll my eyes at the position I'd managed to get myself in. Only I would manage to get a little bobcat shifter without a lick of social sense attached to me at the hip. 

At Emma's direction, I helped Sami remove his shirt. When I told her he didn't have a loincloth, she told me the measurements wouldn't be accurate if Sami kept his trousers on. Giggling, she promised to look away while I measured him, her wife scoffing in amusement at the words. 

"Maybe you shouldn't look away," Silvia teased, poking a faux-pouting Emma in the ribs. "You've never seen a prick before. Not a real one, anyways."

Emma chuckled and rolled her eyes, cocking her hip at her wife and pointing at the door. "Shouldn't you be somewhere else? Playing with dogs or something?"

Silvia's laughter echoed down the hall as she left the room. Emma chuckled affectionately as she turned around, as promised. Grumbling in annoyance, I helped Sami step out of his pants. He watched me closely, but there was no lust. No mischief or flirtation. Something that had happened had spooked him. Something had made him quiet, nearly withdrawn, and I wondered again why Sami was so willing to let both me and Lady Sera touch him, but not anyone else. 

Emma began to direct me where to place the ribbon on Sami's body, Sami completely pliant under my hands, his warmth seeping through my fingers. I ignored the way he shivered anytime my fingers brushed his body, and kept my eyes away from his thick, hard prick, his tight balls pulled up against his body, visibly trembling at my proximity. 

SAMI—

I didn't know if this was hell or heaven but goddess, I didn't want it to stop. And I did. I wanted my Robert to stop touching me, because it ached, but I wanted him to never let me go, because it ached. 

I saw my mate's confusion, and I still didn't understand. I didn't understand what he didn't understand. I was his mate. Why was he touching me as if he didn't want to? And why did that thought make my belly roil and my chest tighten so much I could barely breathe? Why wasn't he embracing me, mating me, like he was supposed to? Like I wanted him to so, so much. 

Why was shame so heavy in his scent now, just like it was yesterday when the stupid man my Robert called Erik said something rude to my mate? 

_Why why why why?_

_Mine mine mine mine._

_Mine_ , my cat yowled, and I flinched at the near violent possessiveness in his voice. 

My mate's hands on my skin were hot and quick, touches that bordered on nonexistent. I stared down at him, my eyes wide, my penis hard at just his proximity. But then he was pulling away, too soon, too soon, and I was left cold and naked and beginning to think...

 _Is there something wrong with me? My mate doesn't want me, so there has to be_. 

Was it something I could fix? I just wished my Robert would tell me why he didn't want me, why he didn't like me. Maybe then I could fix it, could change it, and he would claim me, make me his own. 

Then I could make him _mine_.

My mate held out my clothes, and I sadly dressed, bemoaning my mate always wanting to dress me. Then we were walking down to the dungeons, where two men waited— Erik and another Robert called Les. Les left as soon as we got to the dungeons, and then Robert was sitting on the little chair— a stool, my Robert called it. 

Erik and my mate weren't friendly. They talked only when they had to— _pass the salt_ , during lunch, or _I'll be back— outhouse break_. I shifted into my cat just after entering the dungeon, huffing when my mate picked my clothes up and folded them into a neat pile on the table the guard's stools centered on. Then I curled up at his feet, his boots cold against my belly, and drowsed through the day.


	12. Emerald Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Super long chapter incoming. Enjoy Sami's shenanigans ;P :)*****

ROBERT—

The dungeon rotation was the closest thing to torture I was familiar with. Nine hours of staring at the same black stone walls, nine hours of yawning and trying not to fall to sleep sitting up. Nine hours of squatting on a stool my ass hung off of, listening to a group of men complain about the accommodations. 

"Oy," I growled at the annoying whines, finally losing my temper and glaring the men down. "Keep your mouths shut. You're here because you chose to make a gods-awfully stupid choice. That's on you. Now zip it, or I swear to the gods you'll not get your lunch."

Most of the men fell silent, a few grumbling a bit more before settling back against their cots. Prince Lhiam was far too lenient with them— they were given books and card games to pass the time. Unfortunately for me, I was stuck with Erik, who was a notorious asshole, and I knew he wouldn't play cards with me even if I asked. 

Sami stayed right on top of my boots for most of the day, purring off and on. He was in and out of sleep, mostly, but he stayed fairly alert, his eyes on the bear shifter in his own cell across from the other men. Sami was wary, but calmly so, relying on the metal bars and the proti collar that held the man's bear back. 

The man's eyes were on me and Sami most of the day as well, watchful and curious, but not antagonistic. He was silent, reading through a few books while the men in the cell across from his played together and occasionally called out something derogatory, antagonizing to him. He ignored their jabs each time, almost seeming to not even hear them. 

"The little one," the man said around noon, just after our lunch dishes had been cleared by a handful of servants that had brought the trays in. The prisoners were fed the same as me, Sami, and Erik, another way Prince Lhiam was far too kind to the men who nearly killed the Emperor. "He's your mate?"

Sami woke, his eyes drifting open lazily, glancing up at the bear shifter and then to me. As if wanting to see what I would reply. 

"What's your name?" I asked, in place of an answer. How many ways could I say "I'm not interested in him, but he's got himself fixated on me" without going mad with it? 

"Eigsti. Griffin Eigsti."

"I've been wondering something, Griffin," I began, meeting his swirling, metallic eyes. "How does a wild mage come to be part of a group of mercenaries hunting wild mages? It seems a little..." I trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence. Traitorous? Brutal? Cruel? 

I didn't know the word for the level of hell a man like this would be sent. A man who hunted his own kind, selling them to the highest bidder, into slavery, death, or worse? Gods have mercy on him, for I wasn't sure if the Emperor would, not with his infatuation with Cain. I was sure he would see the trials of each of these men through personally and ensure they were punished for attacking him, but also for their involvement in what Cain had been put through. 

If I didn't know any better, I could've sworn the man flinched, but then he shrugged and sneered. "They weren't after me, so it wasn't my problem. I made money, and that's all I really care about."

I snorted and raised my brows. "That's some moral code you've got there, Griffin."

"It's kept me alive so far," the man answered with a smirk and a slight hitch in his shoulders I didn't think could be called a shrug. "Now hush. I just got to an interesting part in this book."

He held the book up and I had to hold back a snicker. "The Best and Most Accurate Uses for Toadstool, and Other Herbal Answers." 

"You borrow that from Lady Sera?"

The man looked up again and frowned in question. "The woman with the great ass? No. These were brought by some servants. Maybe they come from her collection though. You don't think she'd be interested in giving a condemned man a last night, do ya?"

I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth to reply when Sami's growls started up, his lips peeled back, snarling at the bear shifter with bright, angry eyes. 

"Ah, you claimed her, too, huh? Lucky bastard— two mates."

My brows furrowed as I held a hand down to Sami, trying to calm him down with a gentle scratch across his ears. 

"Two mates? Is that possible?"

Griffin sighed and set the book aside, grumbing, "I guess this is a conversation I'm in now," before turning fully towards me and Sami.

"I assume the feral cat doesn't have any answers regarding wild mages, so go ahead. Lay it out. What do you want'a know?"

I shrugged and continued stroking Sami's back, smiling smugly when his growls turned into purrs and he leaned into my touch. His fur was much softer than I'd thought it'd be, and I brushed my fingers up around his big ears, pulling at the little tufts at the end, before trailing back down and scratching his back. 

"I don't have many questions. Cain— the cougar— has pretty much filled us in, for the most part. Well, he told Edon— the prince consort of Teren— and I overheard. But you said Sami had claimed Lady Sera, and he has two mates?"

Sami snorted and I heard the denial. No, I was sure if Sami had a second mate, we'd all know it. He wouldn't be able to— or desire to— keep something like that a secret. No, Sami just didn't like the way Griffin bad spoken about Lady Sera. 

The fire of possessive rage that ran up my spine was shoved aside and ignored. Lady Sera was beautiful, far closer to Sami's age than I, and a much gentler, sweeter, kinder person than I. She'd make a better mate for the confused shifter, by far. It was almost a shame he'd latched onto me instead. 

"Some do. Akar is the Goddess Ravin's chosen land. Her wild mages are always descended from Akar, and in Akar, polyamorous relationships are common. The Chief of my home tribe had two mates— a man and a woman. We call our spouses _mast'rin_ , ah, mate, whether man or woman. We don't use husband and wife. It's rare for a wild mage to have multiple mates, but it happens."

"Hmm, that's..." I trailed off, wondering about a place that multiple partners was common. Would I ever be comfortable with that? Probably not. I could count on one hand the amount of relationships I'd been in over my life, but I'm a jealous, possessive bastard. I couldn't possibly share. 

Not even with someone like Lady Sera. 

I sat back, watching Sami's heavy purring vibrating the fur around his body as my fingers laced through it. My mind was a mess, and I'd known the kid for barely two days. Gods, how would he wrap me around his little fingers in the time to come?

SAMI—

My Robert was quiet the rest of the day after talking with the bear about mates. When we left the dungeons, he silently led me to the barracks mess hall, where we had a big dinner of steak and he silently waited while I begrudgingly ate the _greens_ he'd forced onto my plate. 

We visited the cougar and his mate that night. I was happy they both looked healthy and the cougar's mate, at least, looked happy, locked in his big mate's arms, his eyes shining with joy. He looked... at peace. 

Goddess, I was jealous. 

I imagined my Robert's big arms around me, holding me with his legs entwined with mine like the Emperor and his mate's were beneath the blankets. 

But I could barely picture it, because I wasn't sure if my mate would ever accept me that way. 

We didn't stay long, just enough for the Emperor and his mate to thank me for my help against the mage hunters, my Robert to tease the cougar for his "sappy, love struck face," though I saw very little emotion in the dark-skinned man, and then we were back in my mate's small room. 

The next few days went the same way. My mate stayed as far from me as he could, but he allowed me at his side, so for that I was grateful. We spent our mornings eating with various men— sometimes the wolf and his mate, sometimes Dasan and Nibley would come up from their home, sometimes even Lady Sera would come and eat by Robert's side. She stayed quiet, didn't look anywhere but her plate and Robert or me, but she was nice to be around. And she always brought me a little candy I shared with my mate. He never let me so close to him while he ate them again, but he always took them with that funny little smile after I'd sucked them for a little while, and he always ate them. 

Maybe that was why my mate was denying me. Maybe he wanted me to prove I could provide for him. We lived in his den, ate the food from the castle, and he was going to be giving me clothes (once they were done, he told me. Until then, I _had_ to wear the wolf's clothes, no matter how much they smelled like dog). Maybe he wanted me to show him I could provide for him, too. 

ROBERT—

Sami was in the keep, by my side, about a week before he began to speak a little more. The days since had been spent in the same ways— Sami followed me around, we ate together, I corrected him like a child when he growled at people, or purposely spilled food he didn't want to eat, or got too close while I slept and jacked himself off. 

He became something of the keep pet, and grudgingly basked in the affection of the men and women who lived there. Though he continued to show his hatred towards Edon, the prince-consort never showed Sami's vitriol bothered him. Edon always greeted him with a smile, and sat next to us when he ate in the mess hall, which was rare. He and Prince Lhiam liked to take their meals privately with their son Tay, since they so rarely saw each other throughout the day, but every once in a while Prince Lhiam would be busy with something, and Edon would get lonely and come eat with me, Dasan, and Nibley. He brought Tay sometimes, but others he left him with Princess Lacy or the child's governess. 

Sami rarely ate with me, because he was treated to tidbits here and there from his "admirers"— Lady Sera, Dasan, Nibley, and various others he graced with his presence. Two of which seemed to be Emma and Silvia, who seemed to have forgiven him for his outburst against her wife. He spent some time with Silvia when he would get bored with me while I went about my duties, following her around as she checked on the keep's animals. 

The night before he spoke his first new words to me, Cain had given the poor thing a scare. Cain had stumbled out of bed, where he'd been busy with the Emperor for the majority of the day. A blushing, stuttering Lady Sera had come back from Cain's room a little after noon, the tray of food she'd brought for their lunch still full. Her face red as blood, the woman not meeting anyone's eyes, she told everyone the two men shouldn't be disturbed, then disappeared out of the kitchen. That had been nearly twelve hours before, and Cain came out of the room and into the barracks' kitchen looking ravaged. Pants and shirt untied, showing off a hard, taut, huge, battle-scarred chest, hair mussed, scratch marks down his chest, bruised bite marks on his neck, and eyes a little less cold and distant than I'd ever seen them, Cain staggered into the kitchen, flinching when he saw the group of us lounging around the fire. 

Prince Lhiam and Dasan had been discussing the prisoners that had been sent to Swyer for trial that day. The two that had been more seriously injured had made a full recovery under Lady Sera's ministrations, so they'd all been sent to Swyer to await the return of the Emperor and their trial. Sami and I had watched in fascination as the bear shifter was dragged out of the dungeons, completely covered in chains. His hands were bound in front of him, his ankles hitched together so tightly he could barely walk, and those tied to each other, then wrapped around his neck. If he tried to run, he'd strangle himself before he could get 15 feet. Directed by a terrified yet stiff and proud Edon, Erik and Dasan practically carried the man up and into the prison transfer cart. Even Edon, whom I knew wasn't fully versed in wild magic lore, had been wary of the bear. I wondered momentarily, if bear shifters were so strong and to be feared for the beast inside them, why then had our men, so vastly outnumbered already, been able to overpower him? And why were there no reports of any of them fighting a bear? None of the men had said anything, and it's not as if that would be something you'd keep a secret. If I fought a bear and won, the others wouldn't be able to get me to shut up about it, and I knew I wasn't the only one. 

I came into the kitchen in the middle of Prince Lhiam and Dasan's discussion, followed by Sami in his cat form. I'd spent the day training in the yards, my dungeon shift over for the next year or so. I was now on the training rotation, and Sami didn't like it one bit. He spent every moment in his cat form, seeming ready to pounce on any of the men who practiced or wrestled with me. I'd eventually had to tell him to leave— to find something else to do, or he couldn't sleep in my bed anymore. It was always a threat that worked wonders, so Sami reluctantly slunk off to do the gods knew what, but at least I was left in peace. 

Despite my exhaustion from the day, I'd been unable to sleep and stumbled into the kitchen for some of the calming tea Lady Sera had begun to stock for the guards. Her concoctions were very quickly becoming highly demanded. 

We fell silent when Cain came in, and amusement flickered through me. For how hard the man fought against the Emperor, he'd given in with flair, sauntering through the castle with the obvious marks of their coupling visible and almost proudly displayed all over his body. 

Dasan and Cain exchanged a look before Cain rolled his eyes and moved to the cold storage. 

"We're not gettin' married, Dasan," Cain pouted, his back to us. Like Sami, the cat in Cain was obvious in the way he moved, the way he turned away from us, in the very way his breaths moved his chest not at all. 

The three of us laughed at Cain's words, and Dasan shook his head fondly. 

"Maybe not," he said as he stood. Then he was beside Cain, whispering something to him that had the big man stiffening a little, before relaxing and leaning toward Dasan, almost affectionately rubbing up against the man. 

The two men, side-by-side, their backs to me and Prince Lhiam, began to put together a dinner for Cain and the Emperor as Dasan continued his conversation with Lhiam. They'd moved on from the prisoners' leaving to the new security measures for the keep and surrounding areas. Tate had recently suggested patrols as far out as five miles from the keep, but both Dasan and Prince Lhiam thought the measures extreme.

"What about your, ah, Sami, Robert?" Prince Lhiam asked, his attention flashing to Sami, curled right on top of my boots. "You think he'd help her out? Would he be interested in something like that?"

I blinked and turned my attention back to Prince Lhiam. I wasn't sure when I'd begun to tune the conversation out, but I was completely lost. 

"Huh?" I asked stupidly, and Prince Lhiam patiently explained. 

"Mistress Silvia goes miles into the woods every day, seeking out herbs for both herself and Lady Sera, as well as tracking the animals and doing other wild witch things I don't exactly understand. With the recent attacks— twice in a matter of six months— Dasan has pointed out she's vulnerable. Mistress Silvia won't be happy about it, but I'd like her not to go alone. Would Sami maybe accompany her when she has to go out like that? He's been around her often recently, and he seems comfortable with her, and she with him."

"If you can get him to do it, sure." I shrugged. "But he won't say a word. He just watches me. He only ever said a handful of words to me, 'mate,' 'mine,' that kinda thing, and now he won't say anything. He barely even shifts to human."

At my words, Cain looked up and moved towards me and Sami. Sami popped his head up, staring up at the huge man that now loomed over him. 

Shocking me, Dasan, and Prince Lhiam, Cain began to spout words in two separate languages I couldn't place, before switching back to Common. Sami seemed to acknowledge Cain, and I guessed he understood the words, but he only curled up tighter around my boots. Cain grunted in annoyance, his nostrils flaring. 

"If you don't talk to us and tell us who you are, you can't stay," Cain nearly growled. "We'll take you from your mate."

Sami nearly screamed, shifting in midair as he jumped to his feet, crouching and baring fangs and claws at Cain. The men stared each other down for just a second before Sami feinted a lunge at Cain, then held both hands out, blocking my body with his own, and growled out, "Mate! Mine! Robert mine!"

"So you understand Common. Good. What's your name, kid? Where are you from?"

Cain was annoyingly calm, but I didn't want Sami embarrassed. I knew Cain meant well, but I was nearly certain Sami hadn't had a name, or didn't remember his, and felt shame for that. 

"I don't think he has one," I muttered reluctantly, not wanting to interrupt the weird mage interaction. "I sorta gave him the name Sami. He seemed to like it."

With my words, Sami relaxed a little back against me. He looked up at me, then shook his head in annoyance. 

"Sami," he said, stepping back. "Sami. Like it."

Cain laughed as he seemed to give up, moving back to his food and leaving without another word. Before I had a chance to react, Sami leapt into my lap, wrapping his legs around my waist, hooking his ankles at my back. I immediately began to try to pry him from me, but he cupped my cheeks and I froze. 

His touch was gentle, his gaze serious as he met my eyes and held them. 

"Sami," he whispered, his mouth just inches from my own. He spoke his words as if convincing me of something important. Something I wasn't understanding. Something urgent and monumental and auspicious. "Sami. Like it. Mine. My name."

"Alright, Sami," I replied, trying to ignore the attention I felt from both Dasan and Prince Lhiam as I pulled Sami's hands away from my cheeks and patted them. "Alright. I get it. I understand."

Since that night, Sami began to try to speak. The words Cain spoke had been extreme but effective, and Sami was finally trying to make an effort to communicate. He made great efforts to do so, in fact— starting with _yeses_ and _nos_ and _please_ and _thank you_. 

All the while, Sami never faltered and never gave up in his relentless pursuit of me and what I began to fear was his fascination with my ass. 

He started something else up, about the same time as his forays into speech. He began to "court" me. That was what Edon called it, when he found me staring in confusion at the dead rabbit at my feet, wanting to retch at the way its neck twisted unnaturally. Sami watched me intently, his muzzle wet with blood, his eyes intent. 

"He's trying to prove he can provide for you. It's sweet," Edon said with a gentle smile. Sami snorted, but didn't look away, and I knew Edon was right in guessing Sami's motivations, but it didn't help me with the problem of dead rabbit. 

I crouched down beside Sami, trying to smile but failing miserably, I was sure. "We get food from the castle, Sami. You don't need to hunt for me."

He rolled his eyes— an odd sight for a bobcat— and stomped away, leaving me with no idea what to do with a rabbit carcass. 

His "courting" got much worse as time went on. It was only a few days after the rabbit that I found a dead bird on the ground beside my bed when I woke. I nearly stepped on it, and I'd admit, my yell when I noticed it was high pitched. Then it was rats, mice, and I dared not ask about the bits of pretty cloth and sweetmeats. Even jewels it took me days to find the real owner of. 

Sami was _not_ pleased when I made him bow and apologize to a bemused Lady Sera, from whom he had stolen a necklace of pure emeralds. 

"I'm sorry, Lady Sera," he mumbled, repeating my words. His mimicry was getting better with time, but forming his own words was still difficult for him. 

"That's alright, Sami," Lady Sera replied, her eyes sparkling with amusement and affection. She was one of Sami's many "admirers", which is what Edon and I called the people who fed and pet and spoiled him, and I could almost see her fingers twitching as if she wanted to scratch him behind his ears. Even in his human form, he was petted liberally by those he allowed the favor and he seemed to bask in the touches. But only those few he favored. Any others who tried received a hiss and a warning flash of claws. 

Sami pouted the rest of the night and slept at the foot of my bed in his cat form in protest. When I poked him in the ribs the next morning, annoyed at his obvious hurt pouting, he glared me down. 

"Why did you take them?" I asked. "I'm not a woman— why did you think I wanted jewelry?"

His huff of irritation made me want to strangle him, but then he was no longer a bobcat, his body, filling out slowly but surely into a healthy skinny, naked against the sheets beneath him, his small hands were pointing at my eyes and he cupped my cheek, staring into my eyes. 

"Same," he whispered. And with the simple word, I understood. 

The emeralds were the color of my eyes. 

I ignored the stab in my chest at the thought and pushed the shifter away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Phew! I don't know why that one was so long haha. Hope you liked it!!*****


	13. The Wild Witch

SAMI—

The woman I had been spending much of my time with, when I wasn't by my mate's side, was called Mistress Silvia, and was called a wild witch. She was like a hedge witch, but for animals, she told me, and her work fascinated me. My mate's work was boring, and I began to explore the castle and meet all the many humans there. I avoided the cougar, because when his mate left somewhere else, just after all of the mage hunters were sent away, he was mean as a snake. He snapped at me if I came even anywhere near him, got mad when I tracked in mud, and hissed back at me when I got angry because he came too close to my mate. 

My mate told me to leave the cougar alone, and not "tease him," so I followed his order. I hadn't been playing with the cougar, I'd only been curious about him and his big cat, but I avoided him as much as I could after that. My mate was the one who teased him, and I had to stick close when he did, 'cause I don't think my mate realized the anger in the cougar's eyes was very, very real and smelled an awful lot like rage. 

My mate didn't care. He just scoffed and shrugged off my concern, but I stayed beside him whenever the cougar was around anyways. If he was rejected by his mate, it was no wonder he was upset, though I was unsure why he was still here if that was the case. If my mate rejected me and left, I'd follow him, no matter what. Because even if he didn't want to be my mate, he was mine to protect, through any future he chose to lead without me in it. 

Mistress Silvia let me follow along with her as she went about the castle, then outside the castle walls. She went alone, which was brave of her, with all the dangers in the woods, so I stayed close to her side and protected her from what I knew lurked in the shadows of the trees. 

Robert and the wolf's mate had tried to ask me to follow Silvia, but I didn't understand why they were asking me to do something I was already doing, so I ignored them and they eventually gave up. 

Silvia seemed to tolerate, and maybe even enjoy my company a little, and she talked as she worked, teaching me things about the animals in the keep, the ones killed by the huntsmen outside the keep, and the ones she tracked to ensure their population didn't go down and they didn't migrate away and not return. She was one of the few humans who looked me in the eye, and she never seemed uncomfortable if I did something strictly not human. She only corrected me and moved on— told me to scoop the water in my hands to drink, rather than drinking straight from the bucket, to keep clothes hidden throughout the keep so if I shifted I wouldn't have to go naked, scolded me when I got too close to people to scent them. She never lingered on my behavior, and never got frustrated when I was slow to pick up on something. 

She even began to teach me to read, which made me proud and want to learn quickly so I could make Robert proud of his mate— who could read, and wear clothes and never go naked, and eat and drink and talk like a proper human. 

I learned herbs that were deadly to humans, but healed dogs of infection, of weeds they were deadly to barn cats but were good for inducing labor in pigs, and about the many breeds of felines, of which I was one and not even near the biggest, I learned to my irritation. I learned to stitch a wound on an animal, while avoiding their bites as they felt pain, and fear made them lash out. And I learned that a gentle hand and lots'a patience was the easiest and best method to training a fearful baby horse or an abused stallion. 

I had been at my mate's side for many days, almost a full moon, and I was only just starting to find a place by his side. I didn't just follow him around anymore, but spent my time being useful to his people, and then I brought him food he could eat that I had hunted. He never really thanked me for any of it, but I thought he might be pleased. He smiled that strange smile, the same one he did when he took my candy, and I thought that meant he was happy with my gifts. 

I spent most'a the day after my mate found the pretty, sparkly green rocks I'd taken from Sera's bedchamber when she wasn't looking with Silvia and Sera, because my Robert had seemed irritable and like he wanted his space to himself. I checked in on him a few times, but for the most part, I was with the two witches, searching out the herbs they both used in their healing arts. 

I'd heard the men joke about women who gossiped, or that women talked a lot, and I'd never really understood that until I was panting in the heat beneath the trees while Silvia and Sera chattered, my human body itchy and annoying. I wanted to shift, because it was easier for me to navigate the forest in my cat form, but Silvia preferred me in my human form so I could ask her questions, or she could test my knowledge whenever needed, so I bore the goddess-awful heat and stayed alert for danger. 

"So then he's sending her away?" Silvia asked Sera, her eyes sparkling with a smirking kind of mischief. Sera flinched and shook her head in frustration, yanking a little too hard on the stalk of an herb they were gathering. 

"It's not like that, Sil," Sera answered. I'd learned that Sera and Silvia had been friends for many years— Silvia and Emma had moved to Robert's castle when Sera had. They'd come, they told me, because Prince Lhiam was "open-minded and accepting," though I didn't really understand what that meant. Something to do with Silvia and Emma being mates, but I didn't understand why they would need to go somewhere else to live just because they were mates. Was that how it was with everyone— when they mated, they had to move somewhere else, to a place where the alpha was "open-minded and accepting"? Or was it just them? Were the two of them different in some way?

Goddess, would I ever understand humans?

"She's going to a finishing school in the capital. Prince Lhiam is not 'sending her away.'" Sera made a funny motion with her hands as she said the last words and stressed them, holding her first two fingers up and sorta squeezing them twice. 

Silvia snorted and rolled her eyes. "That girl has been in love with you for nearly three years— since the midsummer's feast at your father's castle. Do you remember? She ran into a wall and dropped her mug of tea when she saw you. It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen."

Sera blushed darkly, shaking her head and pursing her lips. "She was barely 11. Why was she looking at anyone like that anyways? When I was 11, I was playing in mud."

"You were not," Silvia shot back. "You were getting into your mama's old dresses and making me help you steal—sorry, _borrow_ — Emma's makeup. You're not that much older than the princess, Sera."

"She's a _child_ , Silvia."

"She's nearly 14. There's plenty of places that allow marriage that young, and that's not a child, not anymore. That's a girl trying to find a place in the world. Maybe let her decide if that place is by your side."

"Is this seriously..." Sera trailed off and sat back on her heels, staring Silvia down. "Is this seriously a conversation we're having? Do I have to go over the reasons I couldn't _possibly_ court Princess Lacy, besides her age?"

"You're 20, Sera," Silvia said coaxingly. "That's only a six year age gap. My Emma is younger than me by nearly ten, and I'm pretty sure Prince Lhiam will have nothing to say for it, because you cannot tell me that consort of his is much older than you and the prince is nearly 33. They're _more_ than ten years apart, or I'm blind. I'm not saying marry her now— because you're right, she is too young for anything serious or physical— but why do you disregard her out of hand? She's obviously devoted. Why not tell her to wait, and come back to woo you when her breasts have finished growing?" 

I snorted in amusement at Silvia's words, but Sera's eyes flashed with anger. "She's the heir to the throne, dammit, and I'm a man in a dress. Not even Prince Lhiam will be able to overlook me as his heir's consort."

Silvia froze, her mouth open, horror and something sad, something dark in her eyes as she watched Sera flinch heavily. Sera turned away, wiping a strand of hair out of her eyes and then folding her hands in her lap. I shifted into my cat, leaving a pile of my new clothes behind as I stepped up to Sera. I could sense her distress, and the deep darkness in her mind that began to press against her heavily, and I hoped, if only just a little, to ease that burden. 

I curled myself into Sera's lap, shoving myself up against her belly and taking a deep breath of her alluring, unique scent. She huffed out a little sound and curled her fingers in the fur at my nape, then began to pet me, making me purr in pleasure. 

Goddess, her fingers were magic. 

"Your father... he didn't mean that, sweet girl," Silvia finally said when Sera had calmed just a little bit. "He was confused, and he didn't know what to do. He shouldn't have said it, but... your mama was better suited to things like that."

"Things like his son needing to dress like a woman because his... her brain was wrong?"

"Sera, I wouldn't let anyone speak that way about you, so you need to stop doing it yourself right this moment, or this conversation is over."

I grunted my agreement and Sera's fingers in my fur tightened for just a moment before she resumed her gentle ministrations. 

"How it is said doesn't change the meaning of the words, Silvia. Even if I were to wait until Princess Lacy is of age to court, she is a princess and the heir to the throne. She'll wake up in due time and realize she's been chasing after something she _just can't have_. Then she'll find some man to give her heirs and make her happy, and she'll—"

Silvia snorted, cutting Sera off, and I looked up at the older witch. "If that girl isn't worse than me when it comes to men, I'll chop my own arm off."

"What do you mean?" Sera asked, concerned. 

"Princess Lacy is like me, rather than like you and my wife. She's a girl's girl, and isn't interested in the least in the stupider sex."

Sera shook her head and frowned, her brows furrowed. "But she... I mean, I'm a woman, but I... she knows that I was born a man. If she's only attracted to women, why...?"

"Sometimes, the heart just doesn't care what's under your skirts or in your trousers, sweet girl. Sometimes love just sneaks up on you, and you're left confused by your own body's reaction to someone else than who you always thought you'd find."


	14. Honeysuckle and Horse

SAMI—

I thought long and hard on Silvia's words to Sera over the next few days, and I watched my mate closer than ever. Was he like what Silvia had said— I wasn't what he was expecting in a mate, so he would be confused and have his body sneak up on him? Was there anything I could do to help his confusion, or should I continue as I had— proving my worth and showing him I was his when he wanted me, but otherwise letting him go at his own pace?

He was darned pretty, my mate. Small green eyes that never stopped looking like trouble, 'specially when he teased that damn wolf, lips I wanted to know the taste of. And a body that promised to bring pleasure and a rough hand. Goddess, I wanted those rough fingers. My mate was all of that, and more, and maybe if I continued to be patient, he would choose me. He would move past what shamed him and claim me. 

Silvia let me be by her side when Honeysuckle the mare had her cub— a _foal_ , Silvia told me a horse cub was called— and she even said I could name the new baby. She woke me from my mate's bed and dragged me, sleepy and almost naked, through the keep in the middle of the night. My mate followed, far behind and grumbly, growly, as we went into the barn, but Silvia ignored him and my nakedness, except for a loincloth— my mate made me wear them to bed even though I hated them and they were scratchy— and had me help her with the mare's breathing, helping to turn the baby in her belly, and holding her big head in my lap as she brayed and pushed out the baby.

The foal came out in a sticky mess and Robert wrinkled his nose like he smelled something bad, but I was fascinated and awed. It was amazing, watching a baby feeling the ground for the first time, smelling the hay and the humans around her and her mama for the first time. Goddess, I hoped Silvia let me help her with the other animals in the keep when their broods came. 

"She's beautiful, Sami," Silvia said with a smile, wiping her wet hands on a cloth Robert handed her as Honeysuckle licked at her cub— _her foal_ , I reminded myself. "What do you want to name her?"

"Horse," I answered, looking up at Silvia and smiling. She gave me a funny look— maybe a little confused, a little laughing, but I looked back at Honeysuckle and Horse and watched in wonder as the mama licked all of the blood and mucus from the baby's body, leaving her clean and happy. Horse made little whiny horse noises, and I had to hold myself back from jumping up and down in excitement, knowing it might frighten both foal and mama. 

"Horse," Silvia repeated, and I nodded, still not wanting to look away. "You want... Gods, I guess it's my fault for asking you to name her. Very well. Welcome to the world, Horse."

ROBERT—

I laughed the entire way back to my room as Sami nearly floated through the halls. Horse. He had named the foal _Horse_. And gods, Silvia's face. I thought she would explode, trying to hold back the disbelief and arguments against the name. But she held herself back, though I swore I saw a vein in her forehead pop with her restraint.

"That was amazing, mate," Sami crowed, talking more than I'd ever heard him before. "Honeysuckle just _pushed_ Horse out and she just kinda fell out and she was all new'n pretty'n shiny, and her _legs_! And she was pretty, weren't she? Did'ya know, mate, Silvia said I could name the new hound too? I don't much like dogs, really, but I'm sure a dog cub— a puppy, Silvia said they're called. Hey Robert, why is there a different name for different baby animals? Why can't they all just have one name? I think cub is the perfect name. Not pup like the wolf says—"

"You've gotta start calling him Edon, Sami. Even 'prince-consort' would be better than 'the wolf.' It's disrespectful."

Sami ignored me and continued to crow about the upcoming birth of the puppies to the bitch in the kennels as he led the way back to my room. We only had a few hours to sleep before I had to wake to head over to the training yards, but I knew it was highly unlikely I'd be able to go back to sleep. Sami was far too hyper and excitable. 

Though Sami never warmed up to him, Edon continuously tried to explain the bond to me, for the nearly two months Sami had been living in the castle, sleeping in my bed, spending his days with Silvia or at my feet. In return, I repeatedly explained that I understood fully what the bond meant to the mages, but that didn't change my own anatomy or feelings. 

"Even if I could get over the fact that he's obviously got a few screws loose," I growled at Edon in one of my rare moment's alone, the day after Horse's birth. Sami was off hunting, probably trying to find a rabbit to bring back to try to win me over. And as he did each time he caught me alone, Edon had spent the past 15 minutes trying to explain the bond he felt toward Lhiam, and the one Sami must feel towards me. But I was done feeling guilty for my personal sexual inclinations. I was done with Edon's lectures and Lhiam's not-so-subtle hints. I was done avoiding Dasan and Nibley for fear of the looks on their faces as they glanced from me to Sami and back again, as if waiting for the day I'd give in. 

"He's half my age," I continued, my voice rising in my anger. "Even if I could get past those issues, mind you, I _don't. fuck. men!"_

Edon froze at my vehemence, but I refused to feel remorse or guilt for the way I felt. I felt bad for Sami, I did. But maybe my indulging his attachment had been the wrong approach. Maybe I should have pushed him away completely from the beginning. Then he could have moved on and found someone else to "bond" with. 

Edon's eyes filled as his gaze flickered behind me, then he met my eyes with a ferocity I rarely saw in the shy, unassuming man. 

"I think you're all he has," he replied, a single tear dripping down his cheek. 

I rolled my eyes and stomped back to my room, ready for a mid-afternoon nap and some peace and quiet. 

When I woke an hour or so later, I was surprised to still be alone. 

Two hours, then three passed, then it was dark. I considered going out to look for the cat, but I managed to hold myself back from that bit of idiocy. He would come back when he was good and ready.

When I woke the next morning, and spent the day wandering around wondering where my constant shadow had run off to, I grew angry with myself and even angrier with him. 

Had he lost interest? Decided to move on, find another man to bond with? 

_Well good-for-fucking-him_ , I thought with irritation as I kicked at a stone in my path. I walked out to the woods outside the keep, not even realizing I was listening for the bobcat until I had paused at a faint rustle in the brush around me. 

How had I even managed to start looking for him before I realized what I was doing? How had he dug himself into me so deeply without my even noticing that I was allowing myself to get used to his presence, his companionship? 

Why was I so damn worried he hadn't come home last night?

SAMI—

The next day after Horse was born was when I realized that not every shifter who found his mate got their happily-ever-after. Some of us were just too broken for that. 

The day passed as it usually did, and it wasn't until I was coming back from hunting, nearabout noon, that I caught my mate's voice and my paws froze beneath me. The rabbit in my mouth seemed to chill, the blood on my tongue drying as my entire body stiffened as if I were the dead thing. 

"... he's obviously got a few screws loose. He's half my age," my mate grumbled down to the wolf, his voice filled with a kind of irritated frustration he seemed to save only for use when talking about or to me. "Even if I could get past those issues, mind you, I _don't fuck men!_ "

My mind did a sorta rattle thing, my chest a weird pump-freeze-thump thing,— darn that stung— and then I was moving back. But with my steps, quiet as they were, the wolf's eyes met mine. 

And the pity in 'em made my hackles rise. 

_Don't_ you _pity me_ , I thought in my grief-stricken anger. _Don't you dare pity me, stupid dog._

The wolf's eyes left mine and he turned back to my mate, his stupid dog eyes filling with tears. 

_Weak, pathetic dog, cryin' in front of others' mates_.

His next words, though, had me running off without even a glance back. Because they were darn spot-lickin' on and they made me want'a hate him even more than I already did. 

"I think you're all he has," he whimpered, and I was outta there as quick as I could drop the rabbit. As fast as I could get my heart to start beating again. As lickety-split as I could move my frozen-dead paws.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****I'm sooooooooooorrrrrrrrry*****


	15. Crush

SAMI—

My mate's words— _he's obviously got a few screws loose_ — was running through my head all night. I wandered through the brush, staying close enough to the stone walls I could come to the aid of the humans if they needed me, but far enough away my mind was clear'a my mate's scent for the first time in two moons. 

Should I leave? I wondered. My mate had all but rejected my claim, the knowledge like a shot in the gut. I had spent two moons trying to prove to him what a good mate I would be— how I would care and provide for him and any cubs we had together. I had tried to show my strengths and what I could offer. I had been patient, kept my hands and body— mostly— to myself until he was comfortable with my touch. But maybe I had been selfish in my desires. In wanting him, my perfect mate, I hadn't realized how imperfect I was.

How flawed. 

How _broken_. 

_I'm not worthy of my mate, because my mind is wrong_ , I had realized, and with that knowledge came a sort of peaceful, morbid acceptance. 

Because of course I wasn't good enough for my mate. He was a human who'd had an education, kept a respectable job, had friends and family and a life he loved. And I was an orphan ex-slave whose ma and pa had been no better than dog food, whose mind was twisted and wrong from being alone and in the wild for over a decade, almost two. 

_Feral_ , the bear had called me. And that kinda wildness, it couldn't be fixed or tamed. I couldn't turn off my instincts or my past, and my mate deserved better'n that. 

I was just wondering if my cat would even let me leave my mate as another scar in my past or if I'd have to stay and protect him, away from where he could see or sense me, when I caught his scent and my entire body trembled with arousal and excitement. 

_Mate_ , I wanted to moan. But I kept it in. My mate was here, to find me, and maybe that meant something. Something good and something happy for me. 

Maybe he would accept that I was just broken, but that didn't mean I couldn't be a good mate to him. I'd try my hardest, and maybe... 

Maybe that would be enough. 

ROBERT—

Sami came out of the brush, his paws, disproportionately large to the rest of his body, silent on the crackling brush beneath him. One moment he was staring at me with his tufted ears twitching, the next he was a naked man, his dick hanging limply, a rare sight when he was around me, as his eyes met mine and he stared at me as if I was holding a floating log and he was a drowning man. 

Without a word, his eyes never leaving mine, he took three steps forward, dropped to his knees, and reached for the strings tying my breeches. 

I grabbed his hands, huffing in irritation, and pushed him back roughly. He fell back on his palms, breaking eye contact for just a moment as he resituated himself. Then he was back on his knees, and this time as he reached for my breeches I noticed how violently his fingers shook. 

"Godsdamnit, Sami, stop it! I don't want you!" I growled, shoving him back again. 

He fell again with a soft grunt, and I straightened to turn away, irritated at myself for coming to look for him, and freezing in my tracks when I heard him sniffle. 

I glanced back and my entire body jerked uncontrollably at the sight of big, fat, hot tears slipping down his cheeks. His shoulders shook with sobs, one hand over his mouth to hold back the noises that slipped through the spaces between his fingers. 

"Oh c'mon, Sami," I nearly whined, never one to be comfortable around tears, no matter who shed them. "Please, you'll get over this crush of yours, you'll see. We'll find you someone else to latch onto, alright? Another man, if you want— there are plenty around who have the same... ah, proclivities as you. They all moved here after Prince Lhiam announced his marriage to Edon. I'm sure there's gotta be someone..."

Sami shook his head, his eyes clenching shut as he tried to stifle his tears. 

"It's not you, kid. You're adorable, and I'm sure there are plenty of men out there who would love to have you as their lover. I'm just not one of them. That's not your fault, kid. I just... I'm not attracted to men. Do you understand? I only like women."

Sami's big, soaked eyes opened and I could see he most definitely did _not_ understand. 

I moved forward and knelt beside him, my chest clenching as he hiccuped and shuffled closer to me almost as if pulled by some invisible force. His hand dropped from his mouth as he stared up at me mournfully. 

"There are some people who are just attracted to the same sex, some who are only attracted to the opposite sex, and lots of people in various places in between. I've only ever been attracted to women, and I can't change that just for you, kid. You've gotta understand that."

The boy's confusion seemed to enhance, his head shaking as his sobs began anew, nearly more intense than they had been. He whimpered a little and, without much thought, my only desire to calm him down and make him _stop crying_ because I couldn't bear that shit, especially since I caused it, I leaned forward and slammed my lips to his. 

And all hell broke loose.

SAMI—

In the wild, you only deny a mate that has provided for you, shown their attentions and their care as I had, if you thought them lacking or crippled. Not able to care for you or your cubs. I didn't understand all of Robert's babble about being attracted. He either would accept my claim on him, or he would deny me because I wasn't good enough for him. It wasn't as complicated as he made it out to be. 

My mate's lips on mine were unexpected, confusing, but oh, greatly desired. And I took full advantage of his proximity and seeming confusion, immediately deepening the kiss. I opened my mouth as wide as I could, pressing my tongue into my mate's mouth, and explored his depths. 

But I wasn't the aggressor for long. 

Robert groaned, deep and low in his belly, and I was suddenly on my back, my mate's body cradled between my thighs. He fit sorta perfect there, all snug and warm and comfortable against my body, enveloped in my arms, just where he belonged. I wrapped my legs around him, hooking my ankles at his ass, and rocked up against him. 

I growled when my prick met his clothed groin and I felt his hardness underneath the harsh fabric. I fumbled with his belt, releasing his cock with only a few moves. His hands grabbed my thighs, his fingers digging near-painfully into the soft flesh near my groin as I continuously hipped up against him, bringing our hard pricks sliding deliciously against each other. 

"Fuck, Sami," he groaned against my lips. I growled, my fingers shifting to claws, the better to grip him tighter. I dug my claws into his ass, perfect and round and hot in my palms, urging him on as his hesitant moves against me grew frantic and frenzied. I met him thrust for thrust, panting and growling as our combined precum dripped from our cocks and smoothed the way for our pleasure. 

"Robert," I whispered, my voice harsh with disuse, even to my own ears. "Yes, please... harder," I begged, throwing my head back as my mate pulled back just enough to press his face into my neck. 

"This shouldn't... shouldn't feel so... so _fucking good,_ " my mate moaned into my neck, sending gooseflesh down my body almost violently, to pool at the base of my spine, as his hot breaths heated my skin. "Fuck, what are you doing to me, you godsdamn... stubborn... cat?"

I shoved against my mate and flipped him so I was straddling his hips, his back pressed against the forest brush beneath us. I lined up our pricks and thrust against him, hard. My balls were smashed against his, my length giving his big, solid cock the friction I could see it was quivering for. 

"Fucking hell!" my mate cried out, his eyes rolling up and his mouth open in a wordless shout. I kept my hips moving rhythmically but reached up, pushing my mate's shirt up to pool around his thick chest, just above his dusky nipples.

I leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to my mate's left nipple, then swiped my tongue flat against the little nub. I wanted to chuckle when my mate's breath stuttered, and his hips slipped up against me jerkily. 

Yes, my mate tasted like heaven. He tasted like home and joy and he tasted like _mine_.

"Sami," he said, his voice deep, husky, and like it was coming from deep inside his belly, down deep where I wanted him to feel me the most. "I'm gonna come, Sami. Fuck, you're making me come."

I nodded and brought my hand up, tweaking his right nipple just as I brought his left into my mouth and sucked. My mate lost himself completely. His fingers dug into my sides painfully, and then my hips stuttered in their insistent movements as I felt hot liquid hit my cock and belly. 

"My mate," I whimpered against his chest as my own cum spit out to join my mate's, tangling our groin hairs together, smushed between our heaving bodies.

*****Get it, Sami 😂😂*****


	16. Splash

ROBERT—

I woke the next morning with Sami’s eyes heavy on my skin. It made me itch in a way that was both unpleasant and strangely arousing. Refusing to meet his eyes, I slipped out of bed and dressed. He shifted without a word and followed me out the door on silent paws. 

I had complicated everything with what I had done the day before. I should never have gone to find him. I should have waited for him to come back, or better yet, let him stay away. He could have moved on, found someone else to obsess over, lust after. Instead, I had confused the both of us. 

After the most mind-blowing, life-changing orgasm of my life, Sami had fallen limp on my chest, his body shaking heavily in his own post-orgasm physical strain. His body was light, a gentle, almost calming weight atop my own, and we lay in post-coital bliss for the gods only knew how long. I think we both even drifted in and out of sleep for a few minutes. 

Then my mind began to wake fully, and the panic set in. 

Gods, I’d all but tackled the man. I’d fucked him— not penetration, but my body and mind didn’t see the damn difference. 

I’d fucked a man. 

I’d barely had sex in… gods, I couldn’t even remember how long, and now I’d spilled my seed on a man. 

And I’d… Gods help me, I’d loved it. Loved… _loved_ it, and now craved more. More of Sami’s body heat against my own, his skin soft and supple between my fingers, his hot, panting breaths in my ear as he found his own pleasure in my body. 

I wanted _more_. 

But my panic far outweighed anything else, and I leapt up, throwing Sami down to the ground. Without a look back, I made my way through the brush and to my room. Sami came in an hour or so later, and silently fell to sleep atop my pillow, like always. 

I had never before looked at another man with anything resembling lust or even appreciation. I had even found it a little gross, before really getting to know some of the men I now counted as friends, to hear about two men being together sexually. I liked women— their supple forms, soft skin, curves I could grab as I pounded into them. That was what I liked, what made me hard and wanting. Not a man whose age and real name were unknown, who had not a curve of fat on him, who looked far more delicate than he really was. He looked like he might break with a good, hard pounding, but I now knew that to be untrue. He’d been firm beneath my fingers, willing and ready to return each kiss, each thrust, each lick with one of his own.

“Fuck,” I muttered, shaking my head to try to clear it. Sami’s confused, curious eyes caught my own, but I looked away, my guilt compounding with every thought about his lithe, powerful body writhing beneath, and then above, my own. No woman had ever ridden me with the bliss that Sami had shown, and I hadn’t even been inside of him. 

I’d been with only a few women in my life, always finding hunting them, wooing them, and even sex itself tedious and frustrating. After I grew into my mid-twenties and my mind was no longer so ruled by my body, I’d spent nearly every night alone. 

And yet that man had turned me inside out with a few thrusts of his hips. I’d never felt the things I felt on that forest floor. I’d momentarily lost my mind, all the blood pooling to my dick, and I’d lost control and done something I’d never have thought possible for me to do. 

I had not only confused and disoriented myself, but Sami as well. After weeks— nearly three months— of turning him down, I had not only sought him out, but I had shoved him to the forest floor and fucked him. We had come together, and he had been damn beautiful in his pleasure, and now I was again pushing him away. For someone who lived on instinct, who was simple in thinking if not in mind, my actions had to have been absolutely flabbergasting. 

We made it through the morning without incident, with Sami keeping closer to me than before, if that was at all possible. I got a few strange looks from Edon, as if he wanted to approach me, but he never did, and I was grateful I didn’t have to deal with my own thoughts and his condemnation on top of it. 

Around nine in the morning, Sami silently disappeared, and I found him hours later in human form with Lady Sera. They sat beneath a tree in the front courtyard, Sera talking in that slow, gentle way that seemed so calming. Her voice had a kind of husky quality to it, nearly indecipherable with how quiet it was. Sami sat and watched her, listening to every word she said but saying nothing back. 

He was also completely naked, and it took every ounce of self-control I possessed to keep from marching up to him and throwing a heavy cloak over his shoulder, covering him from her, and any other, prying eyes. And to keep him warm as the air chilled a little more with each passing day. 

I left them alone, curious but respectful of their privacy. If I hadn’t seen how Sami treated Sera like a fascinating creature to study I would have tried to push them together. I chuckled at the idea, drawing the attention of both of them. I waved but ducked my head back around the keep walls, not wanting to interrupt whatever Lady Sera had been talking to Sami about. 

Throughout the day, Sami would find me for a few minutes, as if checking that I hadn’t run away, then return to Sera. My confusion and frustration with myself wouldn't die down, and I spent most of the day irritated and growling at anyone who crossed me.

Sami and I spent the next night after I’d lost my ever-loving mind with Dasan and Nibley at their cottage. I’d not wanted to spend any alone time with Sami, afraid he’d push me, afraid he’d be hurt when I was forced to deny him after I had confused him so much the day before. 

Sami seemed to have taken a “wait and see” approach to seeing how I would react and what I would do. He was watchful, but otherwise normal. He didn’t act any differently than he had before, as far as I could tell. My own actions the day before had been so out of the normal scope of my experiences, so far from how I would’ve ever thought I’d handle Sami and his affection for me. 

I needed to find a woman to fuck. It had obviously been far too long, and I was clearly desperate. So desperate I was craving a taste of a small man who’d made me so lust-crazed I’d momentarily lost my mind. 

“Fuckin’ hell, Sami-boy,” Dasan yelled with frustrated amusement. 

I looked up, searching out what Sami had gotten into this time. I stood beside Nibley, who was cooking Sami’s latest haul over an open fire he’d set up outside their home. Nibley and I both turned to look at Dasan’s yell at the same time. 

Dasan stood in waist-deep water, glaring up at Sami, ten feet above him, who stood on the rock formation that hung over the lake. Unlike Dasan, who wore a pair of short trousers to swim, Sami was ass-naked, his smooth, tanned skin on full display for all of us to see. His prick and balls hung heavy below his thin patch of curls, and I had to fight the images of it, hard and leaking, from my mind. 

His body dripped with water, streaking down his skin like droplets of diamonds. His legs were straight and thin, his ass round and the only plump part of his body, just the size to fit each cheek into a palm. With just enough padding to make it easy to slam in and out of him without hurting either of us. 

“I gave you trousers so you could wear ‘em to swim, kid. Where’d you even put them?” Dasan grumbled, slapping his hand against the top of the water. 

“Swimming with clothes is stupid, Das,” Sami replied with a cock of his hips. “They’re heavy and made me slow. I can swim fast-fast without them.”

“Yes, but you’re also naked-naked. What did we talk about last week?” Dasan scolded and I chuckled at his fatherly tone. “If you’re around other people, your junk needs to be covered.”

“I don’t like the word ‘junk’ for my penis, Das,” Sami replied with an annoyed flick of his hair, shoving it out of his eyes. “My penis is not ‘junk.’ My penis is—”

Nibley broke out into laughter as Dasan yelled loudly, wordlessly, to cut off whatever Sami was about to say. 

“We also don’t talk about our penises when we’re among others.”

“Das, no more talking-talking,” Sami said with annoyance and another adorable flick of his hair. “You gonna keep talking about my penis, or you gonna beat my record? My splash was much higher than yours last time. Even your mate said so. You gonna admit defeat?”

Dasan cackled evilly and cracked his knuckles. “You’re on, you little brat,” he chuckled. “Go ahead. Show us what you got.”

Sami smiled, his eyes flashing, before he stepped back, then ran forward, leaping off the rocks and dropping into the water in a tight ball, his knees pulled up to his chest. He landed in the water, the liquid flying up around him. Dasan stuttered as he was splashed by a huge wave from the lake, before he began to push his way through the water towards the rock outcropping, determination on his face. 

Nibley and I clapped heartily when Sami emerged, shaking his head like a dog to get the water out of it. The smile he shot me was pure and unadulterated joy, his laughter when he saw we were clapping clear and high. 

“Mate, did you see my water splash? It’s gonna be much bigger than Das’s, you’ll see.”

“I’m sure it will, kid,” I replied with a smile of reassurance. 

“Traitor!” Dasan called from the top of the rock pile. “I’ve been your friend for decades, and you turn on me so easily! What has our friendship meant to you, if I don’t even have your loyalty?”

He grabbed his chest, his face fake-distraught, and I laughed and shook my head. 

“Just jump, you overgrown child,” Nibley hollered. “We’re waiting with bated breath, love.”

Dasan rolled his eyes and moved to jump as Sami had: falling back a little, running forward, and then leaping off the rocks. 

Despite Sami being at least half Dasan’s size, Dasan’s splash was, again, just a little smaller than Sami’s. 

Nibley and I began to laugh as Dasan came up, looked over to us, and we both pointed as one to Sami. 

“Godsdamnit!” Dasan yelled, slapping the water, as Sami hooted and slogged out of the lake. He ran towards me, his leanly muscled legs eating up the distance between us until, with a great leap, he wrapped himself around my waist, his arms around my neck. 

“Mate, I stole the Splash King title from Das!”

“I saw, Sami,” I laughed, holding him up as he tangled his ankles at my back. 

“You gotta call me your majesty now, mate,” Sami said, his mouth pursed with fake-seriousness. 

“Ah, my apologies, your majesty,” I said with a nod, my own mouth forming a smile against my will. Sami chuckled and jumped down, running back over to the water and tripping in near Dasan. 

“Again, Das?” he asked with a cocky smirk. 

“Oh, no, no, little cat,” Dasan answered with a forced chuckle. “A man can only handle so much humiliation in his life before he just rightfully surrenders his title and crown.”

I laughed aloud, shaking my head as Sami splashed Dasan at his words and they began to shove water at each other. I looked over, catching Nibley’s curious, probing gaze. 

“What?” I asked, my smile dropping as I turned away from Dasan and Sami’s childish games and tried not to squirm under Nibley’s intense scrutiny.


	17. Different

NIBLEY— 

I’d known Robert over twenty years. He’d always heavily, and loudly, touted his complete attraction to women. Had almost seemed to fight against any small insinuation he may be like me and Dasan. Despite this, I could count on one hand the women I’d actually seen him with. 

He’d slept with a few of the women who hung around the war camps— not paid whores, but women who enjoyed the company of soldiers. Those women weren’t ones he loved, or even liked, but they scratched the physical itch of a man constantly at war. They were a release after a battle, a thirst he slacked because it was why they were there. 

Rachel was the only one he ever seemed to genuinely enjoy spending time with. Nearly five years his senior, Rachel had wrapped Robert around her little finger when he was barely into his twenties. He’d been infatuated, maybe, but not in love. But he’d thought he was, at the time, and the way he held her and kissed her sweetly and was gentle with her, it was a pure kind of affection on his part. 

When Rachel was seen leaving our captain’s tent after only a few weeks of their whirlwind romance, Robert had shrugged and laughed off Dasan’s and my concern. We’d let him push us away, because we’d agreed she was a young love he’d get over quickly. 

After her, he took a few more women to bed. But never again did he show them affection outside of whatever they did in his tent. And I wasn’t completely sure if that was because she’d hurt him more than we’d attributed to her, or if he just never found another he genuinely liked as he had Rachel— never felt that connection again. One way or another, he was all but celibate, and seemed content to stay that way. 

Now he was being courted by a man nearly half his age, and though he adamantly pushed Sami away at nearly every turn, it was almost amusing to watch the way he reacted to, and acted around, the smaller man. 

He wouldn’t let us think he and Sami were together, but the way he looked at him was fond, affectionate, gentle. He wouldn’t let Sami sit on his lap at dinner, like he tried to every night, without fail, but he fed him little bits of the meat off his own plate the entire time, since Sami ate all of his like a rabid animal and begged pathetically for more. 

Sami leapt into his arms, soaking wet and naked, and Robert didn’t hesitate to grip the man’s bare thighs and ass to hold him up against his body, to not let him fall. He didn’t even complain about the fact Sami had gotten his clothes soaked with the move. He barely seemed to notice. 

Robert laughed more when he was with Sami than I think I’d ever seen. He ruffled his hair when the shifter showed him rocks he’d found in the lake. He took Sami’s little presents seriously, somberly thanking the young man, even when it was a blood-drenched carcass and Robert was obviously disgusted. He teased Sami, tickling him mercilessly on multiple occasions, after, he’d said, he found out Sami was nearly violently ticklish. 

And he didn’t even see it. He didn’t realize that he treated Sami differently than he’d even treated Rachel, all those years ago. He didn’t realize it, because he had an idea in his mind of what his partner should be, and it wasn’t Sami. And that was alright. I could no more hate Robert for his predilections towards women that I expected him to towards me for my love of Dasan. But if he was denying himself a true happiness it seemed as if Sami offered him, because he was afraid? Because he didn’t want to be ridiculed and mistreated the way he’d seen Dasan and I endure? Because he’d been taught from a young age that it was wrong to be different?

If he truly didn’t want Sami, fine. But I didn’t believe he didn’t. Because the way he looked at the younger man? Gods, it reminded me of the way Dasan used to watch me when we were teenagers. 

Afraid, hesitant, and filled with a spark of something from deep within his soul. 

Dasan had almost left me for his fear. I was afraid of watching Robert do the same, because I wasn’t sure Sami would be able to talk him down the way I had with Dasan. 

“You know, Robert, it’s ok,” I said gently, quietly enough that neither Dasan nor Sami could hear us. After they’d exhausted themselves in the water and we’d eaten around the fire, the two childish men now played a game of cards, actively insulting each other with each hand. Sami had taken easily to the game with his sharp mind, and he began to beat Dasan within two games. Much to Dasan’s annoyance. 

Robert and I watched Dasan and Sami, laughing together at their antics. We both held a cup of mead, keeping warm and away from bugs nearer to the fire. 

“Nibley, I’m not—” Robert began, his smile dropping as he shook his head at me. 

“Let me finish, please, Robert. Just— just hear me out?”

Robert nodded, his jaw clenched, and I turned to meet him square-on. 

“It’s ok, whichever way you choose,” I began, choosing my words as carefully as I was able. “And it’s also not my business. It’s not mine, it’s not anyone’s but yours and Sami’s. But I want you to think of something, ok? And just remember it, keep it in mind. Can you just agree to that, for me?”

Robert’s jaw was so tight I feared he would break a tooth, but he nodded. It was nearly imperceptible, but I saw it and took it as permission. 

“Do you think less of Dasan and I, for being in love with each other? Do you see as us less human or as disgusting in any way, because we are attracted to each other and live together, as some say only a man and woman should?”

“You know I don’t,” Robert answered, his eyes never leaving mine. “You’re my best friends. I understand it’s just the way you were born, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“And I understand that being attracted to women, that’s the way you were born. And that’s just as ok as Dasan and I. It is what it is— humans are just born the way we are, and that’s fucking ok, Robert. All I’m asking is for you, without judging yourself, without listening to the voices in your head that tell you— even now, don’t deny it— that it’s wrong. That same-sex attraction is wrong. Just… let yourself realize how you feel when you’re with him. Let your body feel. Let yourself see how you smile and laugh when he does. Let yourself pay attention to what your heart says when you hear his voice. 

“Just… pay attention, Robert. That’s all I ask. I’m not saying be with Sami. I’m not saying force yourself past your comfort to please Sami. That would only lead to misery— for both of you. I’m just saying— notice how you feel when you’re around him. And don’t let your upbringing, and the fear of what others would think, hold you back from how you want to move forward, one way or another. It’s your life, kid, and no one can live it better than you.”

SAMI—

My mate had kissed me and held me and used my body the way it was meant to be used— to bring him pleasure. 

And now he was careful with me. He was a little more afraid to touch me, to smile at me, and I knew maybe I’d been too impatient with him. As long as he wanted me, and I wasn’t too broken and wrong, I would stay strong and love him, and I’d try again to make him see how perfect we were together. It was my duty to love and stay beside him, protect him, as his mate, so that’s what I’d do. 

And I’d just keep trying, now that I knew my mate wanted me just as I wanted him. 

Dasan and I played lots, and then Robert led me back to his room. We got into bed, and my mate fell to sleep real fast. I stayed up watching him for a little while, tracing the laugh lines around his mouth with a finger I kept light so as not to wake him. I breathed in when he breathed out, tasting the breath directly from his lungs. Taking a piece of him inside myself. 

The next day, I stayed mostly with Sera again. Her pa had come to visit, had yelled and hollered about her not taking her _responsibilities seriously! Now you run away to Teren to play dress up in women’s clothes, because you’re too afraid to be a man and grow up_!

I’d heard her pa yelling, but I hadn’t intervened. She’d told me not to, just before he got there, and I knew it was important to her that her pa be respected. 

I didn’t think a man who insulted my friend should be respected, but I obeyed her wishes. But she needed me after he went back home, so I stayed near her instead of with my mate or with Mistress Silvia, and she talked. 

She talked and talked and talked, and I listened and listened and listened. I was good at listening, because I’d spent most of my life listening to the silence around me. To the rustle in the leaves and the crickets in the brush. So listening to her kind, husky voice was soothing, like the sounds of those crickets and those leaves had been. 

“I don’t blame him, you know?” Sera said with a sad kind of shrug. “I took his son and heir from him, and he just… He doesn’t understand. He’s a good man. He was raised to believe that men marry women, they make babies, and they work hard every day to provide for those children. The men work in the field— farm or battle— and the women rear the babies and keep the house. 

“It’s simple for him. But for me— gods, Sami, it’s so complicated. I wasn’t born the boy he needed for his heir, and I can’t pretend to be. I can’t…” 

She paused, shaking her head and picking at the leaves of a flower, then smiled at me, sweet and gentle. 

“I’m sorry, Sami. You don’t need to listen to me whine all day.”

“You have a pretty voice, Sera, and I like to listen to you.”

Sera smiled and shook her head, then leaned back against the tree in the courtyard where we sat together. 

“I almost died trying to be what my father wanted me to be, Sami.”

“Someone hurt you? Your pa hurt you?”

“No. He’d never hurt me, not like that. I almost… I almost hurt myself. I was weak, and I just…”

“You weren’t weak, Sera. Just sad. Being sad makes you strong, not weak.”

Sera’s eyes did a funny big, small, big thing, and then she shook her head and smiled in a little, sweet way, her eyes sparkling real pretty. 

“Sera, if you’re sad,” I said, looking into those bright, kinda light eyes. “You can hold me on your lap and I’ll purr for you, and you can tell me why you’re sad, and it will make you feel better, ok? You don’t need to be sad alone, ever again, I promise. So next time you’re sad, just come find me. No matter what, promise.”

Sera was quiet for a long time, watching me, her sparkle-eyes assessing me like I was something she needed to study. 

“You’re a special man, Sami,” she finally said. “Robert’s lucky to have you.”

“My mate wants me but he’s afraid to want me. I don't understand, Sera, but I want to, because I don’t want my mate to be afraid anymore.”

“I think you’re wiser than any of us have given you credit for, Sami,” Sera said. 

“I’m not real smart, Sera. But I know my mate. I feel my mate. And I taste his fear.”

“Do you know what he’s afraid of?”

“See, I’m not smart ‘cause I don’t know. I don’t understand— I just know it has to do with me. He’s not afraid of me, but he’s afraid of being my mate.”

“Sami, sometimes, people don’t like it when other people are different.”

“Like your pa?”

“Yes, exactly like my pa. And a man being with a man— the way you want to be with Robert— that’s just a little different. It’s not wrong, but some people think it is, because it’s different and they don’t understand it.”

“Because I’m not a woman?”

“Exactly.”

“Then why was your pa yelling? Because you’re a woman, but you like men like I like my Robert, right?”

Sera paused for a minute, her mind working as she thought of what she wanted to say. 

“I’m attracted to both men and women equally, Sami,” she said after a few moments. 

“Like me. I just like my mate. I would’ve loved my mate, even if he was female.”

Sera chuckled and then, “But that’s not the reason my father is angry at me. Sami, I was born a male, but my mind and my heart told me I was supposed to be a woman. My soul screamed it, until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. That is why my father is angry at me.”

“Because you’re supposed to be a girl?”

Sera shook her head and laughed. “Yes. It makes me different. And remember, some people think different is bad.”

“So if Robert is my mate, he would be different. And some people wouldn’t like it.”

“If he wants you and is fighting that, then yes. But Sami, I was born to be a woman, and to be attracted to any gender— it doesn’t matter to me. You were born to find your mate. Sometimes, people— maybe Robert— are born to be, well, not different. I don’t want you to get your hopes up if Robert is unable to reciprocate anything. If that’s the way he was born, it’s just as wrong for you to try to change him, as it is for my father to try to change me.”

“He’s my mate,” I explained. Humans didn’t understand. They didn’t understand that Robert was mine and I was Robert’s and being different or attracted had nothing to do with it. “And I’m his. That’s how we were born, so it’s not changing anything.”

Sera sighed a little, not sad, maybe tired. And then she began to talk about what the chef was making for dinner and we didn’t talk about Robert anymore, or her pa, or anything like that. We talked about food, and plants, and I talked about Horse and how pretty she was. And soon, I wasn’t feeling so bad about Robert, and Sera seemed a little happier even though her pa had been mean to her.


	18. Freely and Daringly

ROBERT—

Sami stayed with Lady Sera again, in the same spot beneath the tree in the courtyard. He was at least dressed this time, though he didn't wear a shirt. His nipples were puckered, pink and pointed in the cold wind. I watched Sami and Sera for a while from near the stables, studying the way they interacted. 

Sami had grown close to Sera over the last few weeks, an interesting friendship if I'd ever seen one. But at the same time, they fit, the woman and the feral man. She was good for him, kept him occupied and out of trouble, and he seemed to calm her the way I'd only seen Cain able to do before. The only other he truly let himself relax around was Silvia, and I was glad he seemed to have found a calling as something like her assistant. 

A little after noon, Sami came to find me, a big smile on his face. I met his eyes and realized I was smiling only when my cheeks started to ache. 

_"Let yourself realize how you feel when you're with him"_ , I heard Nibley say as my heart jumped a little at the way Sami practically skipped over to me. _"Let yourself see how you smile and laugh when he does."_

I shook my head, clearing my friend's voice from my mind, and held my hand out to Sami.

"C'mon, let's get some lunch, Sami," I said, leading him back towards the mess hall.

Sami easily moved into step beside me, his fingers tangling with my own. 

" _Let your body feel_."

I hadn't even realized I was holding his hand until the words flashed through my mind. But his fingers felt right twisted with mine. His skin was hot, distracting against my own once my mind processed it. After what had happened in the woods, I'd become aware of my attraction to him. My very unwanted, confusing physical attraction. But this... this was different. This was warm somewhere deeper than the body. His hand in mine felt good in a way I wasn't sure I could name. 

How often had I held his hand and led him places, and not even realized I was doing it? Not even noticed my body had reached out to him, without my mind calling out an alarm of _wrong_? Was it only since the forest, or had I been like this before? Was that why everyone acted so strangely, pushing me towards Sami despite my protests? Were my feelings and actions so obvious to everyone but myself? 

Sami smiled up at me when we entered the mess hall, nearly empty since we were getting in late, and my chest squeezed at the simple joy I saw reflected back at me in that look, that smile. 

"Mate, can I have some pudding? Sera said they made pudding today and it's chocolate. I really like chocolate, Robert."

" _Let yourself pay attention to what your heart says when you hear his voice_."

I shook my head, trying to clear it, again Then I smiled and nodded. 

"Whatever you want, Sami."

For the rest of the day, I kept Nibley's words in my mind. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was just afraid. Maybe I'd been treating Sami differently, and I'd not even seen it in myself. Maybe I was just too godsdamn blind to see it. Because as I paid attention to the things Nibley told me to, I noticed more and more the little things I felt and did when I was near Sami. Above all, he just made me smile. He made me calm and content and warm. He just... he made me feel _good_. 

Sami seemed to have adopted a plan of patience towards me after the mess in the woods, but I wondered how much longer he'd keep to that. How much longer he would hold off before he again grew tired of my indecisive confusion. The man was patient, but he was also persistent and stubborn. He'd try again, and I had no idea how I would react— how I should react. Would I again chase after him, fall into his arms and let myself go with my desires, and his lust, or would I let him go this time, like I'd thought I should?

We spent the night after I finished my shift in the guards' lounge, playing a board game called War. The lounge was a large room off the guards' kitchen, just near the mess hall. The room was lined with windows and had chairs and cushions set on every available bit of ground. There were thick rugs on the stone ground, and various games and books, scrolls and other items on shelves along the walls. 

Sami and I sat near the large hearth fire, a small table with the game board set up on it between us, where we sat in the most comfortable armchairs in the lounge. We had snagged them early, and had been playing games for hours, until we were the only ones left in the lounge. I had the next day off from my duties, so I was allowing myself the luxury of staying up far later than I normally would. We'd mostly played a few card games Dasan had already showed Sami, but we were now playing War, and I was trying to explain the rules as well as I could. 

"You can't go that way. That's your priestess— she can only go forward or backward, not to the side," I explained, yet again, when Sami tried to make a move he wasn't allowed. 

"I don't understand. Why won't they let the priestess move to the side? She just needs to step, Robert."

I chuckled and shook my head, having never really questioned the _whys_ of the game. 

"I don't know, Sami, it's just the way you play. It's a rule of the game."

"Alright, Robert. It's a stupid rule, though. Priestesses should be able to move wherever they want."

I snorted out a laugh. "How forward-thinking of you. The Emperor would be proud."

"I'm glad the big cat finally went to his mate," he said at the mention of Emperor Riece. "He was very angry and mean without him."

I chuckled at the understatement in Sami's words. Cain— a cougar shifter— had been without Emperor Riece for only a month before he gave in and went after him, and he'd been a right miserable bastard in those few weeks before he left. He'd terrorized River, one of Riece's guards who stayed in Teren to train with Cain after the Emperor left, so badly that the man had all but fled back to the capital. Cain had pushed Lhiam to the end of his rope, because he was a good man, a fierce fighter, and one of the best guards in Teren, but he'd been insubordinate, rude, and irritable for weeks after the Emperor left for the capital without him. I wasn't sure about the details, but I did know it was wholly one-sided on his part. Riece was all in, I could see it from the way the man watched Cain when the guard wasn't paying attention, to how Riece acted when Cain wasn't around. It was Cain holding back, so I'd teased him nearly mercilessly, hoping I'd irritate him to action. 

It hadn't worked— Dasan's shoving Cain in front of a metaphorical mirror did the trick— but I'd had fun while he'd been a right miserable bastard. 

"Me too, Sami," I replied as I moved my warrior piece forward and took out Sami's priestess. Sami's brow furrowed as he stared at the board, then grabbed his healer and smacked my warrior off the board. The marble piece clattered to the ground, breaking the near silence as the echoes bounced off the empty room around us. 

"That doesn't..." I began, then shook my head and rolled my eyes. He seemed to have no grasp of the game at all, and instead thought that getting rid of my pieces was only a matter of how hard he hit them with his own piece to physically push them off the board. "Never mind. That works," I finished with a faux smile, before taking out his count piece.

I watched Sami as he studied the board, his brow furrowed, deep in thought. For someone who used brute force to get rid of the pieces, he was taking which piece of his own to do the job seriously. I smirked and snorted, drawing his attention. 

"Don't laugh at me, Robert," he said with a teasing smile. "I'll learn fast, and then I'll beat you at this game, like I do all the others."

I had to admit, he was likely right. It was never a question of if he would master every game or process I or anyone else showed him, it was just when. Sometimes it took him a little longer than it would someone else, but when he got it, he perfected it and then mastered it better than anyone around him with ease. 

"That's true," I laughed. He met my eyes and returned my smile, then looked back down at the board. "Can I ask you something, Sami?" I said suddenly, wondering even as I spoke why I was going to ask the question. It was something that had nagged at me for months, since I had only begun to get to know Sami. 

"Anything, mate," he replied, his eyes flickering up to me seriously. 

"Why did you wait so long, to come back to, uh..." I paused, shook my head, and shrugged. "Back to civilization. Why did you stay in your cat form, in the forest, for nearly twenty years? It's a godsdamn long time to be alone." 

Sami's eyes flashed with something. Something deep as a cave and dark, like doubt, maybe fear, and then he looked away and shrugged. 

"There was no reason to come back, mate," he began, his words careful, picked with great thought as each left his plush lips. "Pa and Ma were slaves, killed by the Master when they tried to escape. Eaten by his dogs—"

I must have made some noise or something I wasn't aware of, because Sami stopped, met my eyes, and sat back a little. His eyes widened just for a moment, and then he shook his head and continued. 

"All I knew of humans was that they hurt and they killed and they beat. So when I ran away, and I left Pa and Ma to die behind me, I left my human half behind me for a little while, too. For a long time, I thought he died back with them and left only my cat."

Sami paused, studying my face closely. His words were horrifying, and I could see they made him nervous— his fingers moved across the smooth surface of his white emperor game piece in a soothing, anxious gesture. 

"What made you come back?" I asked, reaching out to put my hand over Sami's to stop his nervous, nearly frantic pressing against the piece held in his fingers. His entire body froze as he stared up into my gaze, the many colors of his eyes nearly disappearing as his pupils dilated and his nostrils flared. A little sound, like a whine mixed with a growl mixed with a purr, rose up his throat and his chest arched a little, as if pulled closer to me. 

"You did, mate," he replied, his voice coming out breathy. I watched him, fascinated by what my simple touch— my hand on his— did to him. The way he reacted as if I had just stroked his cock. He squirmed a little and I wanted to roll my eyes, because I knew that meant the damn insatiable man was getting hard. From my hand on his. That simple touch had him panting and arching towards me.

"I wasn't even in the Emperor's contingent of men that got attacked," I said, pulling back from Sami's hot, responsive skin, and he whined in disappointment. He shook his head, his eyes never leaving mine, then he was growling and standing in a fit of frustration. 

Without a word, he moved around the table and climbed into my lap. His face was determined, his gaze level as he swung himself over my lap and kneeled atop me, his thighs tight around my waist. He pulled my face to his until our breaths mingled, his eyes boring into my own. I let him, caught up in the ferocity in his gaze, the determination in the way he moved, and the stubborn way he had so quickly wrapped himself wholly around my body. 

"It doesn't matter," he whispered, settling himself comfortably against me. His cock was as hard as I'd known it would be and it pressed against my belly. Now that he was on my lap, he seemed content to just be in my arms, for he made no move to move his prick against me. I only noticed my hands had automatically gone to grip his hips as he pulled himself up on me when his heat began to seep through the fabric of his shirt and burn my fingers and palms. 

"It doesn’t matter,” Sami repeated. “I smelled you on Dasan and Nibley, and I came to find you," he said on a breath. "You're my fate, Robert, so I had to make sure I got to you, even if it meant coming back to humans, too. I had to find my mate."

I realized the courage it would have taken for this man, small and alone, to not only help strangers who could have easily turned on him, but then to follow them back to a place he didn't know. Just for the chance to track down the scent of his fate. He left the safety of what he knew, the comfort of the familiar, and went towards the very humans he'd long before escaped from. 

For me. Just to find _me_.

He smiled as he studied my face, and I flinched as his hot breath, mere inches from my face, had goosebumps rising up and down my arms and across the back of my neck. 

"I'm glad I found you, mate. You're a good human, and Ravin picked well when she gave you to me. I hope someday, you'll be grateful she gave me to you, too."

My fingers tightened on his hips at the simple, sweet words and I shook my head. "Sami, I'm..." 

I trailed off, then shook my head again. I must have looked like a dog with a fly attacking its ear, but I couldn't get my thoughts to clear through the smell of Sami engulfing me. Through the heat of his body atop mine. Through the feel of his weight in my arms. Sami waited patiently, watching me with an open, concerned expression. There was lust there, heat, but there was also affection and a gentle, sad acceptance. 

How much longer could I rebuff him before I gave in? 

I now knew I was physically attracted to him— strange, to be sure, but it was what it was, and denying it would just make me an idiot— and he seemed bound and determined to have me. To give himself to me. I glanced around the empty room, to ensure we were alone, and then turned back and met Sami's eyes. 

The sweet roundness of his face drew my gaze as the fire from the hearth beside us deepened the shadows of his eyes, making them seem even bigger somehow. His hard nipples poked through his shirt, and his chest rose and fell a little quicker, a little heavier than it should be. His shirt had ridden up just a bit with his moves against me, so I could see the bit of hair on his belly leading down into his trousers, the top of his loincloth showing above the edge of the pants. 

I licked my lips, glancing down at his hard prick in his pants, and it jerked with my gaze. Then I was staring back up at a very confused, very distraught Sami as glared down at me with his swirling, multi-colored eyes bright with sadness and frustration. 

The sadness had my self-control nearly snapping, but then he pressed his hips forward, thrusting his hard prick against my stomach, and my own cock twitched with interest. He lowered his fingers to my breeches, his eyes never leaving mine, and I shook my hand and put my hands over his to still his seeking fingers. 

"Stop, Sami. It's not... it's not right."

"Why?" he whimpered, his eyes growing pathetically bright, reflecting the flickering firelight, as I rejected him once again. 

"Sami, please. Please understand, there are so many reasons why it would be wrong."

"Why? Why not? I don't have screws loose," he whispered, and I flinched when I realized he had heard my words to Edon, said in frustration and irritation, and taken them to heart. "I'm here. I'm your mate. Nothing else matters. So why not?"

With a frustrated grunt, I stood with him in my arms, setting him on the board game table, scattering two dozen game pieces all over the floor with a crash of marble against stone. As if made to be there, my body fit snugly between his legs as he draped them around me, hooking his ankles at my back, just above my ass, and wrapping his arms up around my neck. 

I hovered over him, my heart racing with my confusion. Malevolent gods, what was I doing? Why was I so incapacitated by this man's few words? Why did I feel so right, so calm now with his body pliant against mine?

Why was I so easily twisted into knots over this innocent, feral man?

"I'm confused, Sami. This is... a lot. I've never been attracted to a man. I like women— I don't like men! Please understand, all of this is a lot for me."

"I'm not men," the shifter whispered, a single tear dripping across his temple and back into his curly, ragged hair as he stared up at me, his face pleading, determined, lost. "I'm your Sami."

The words had the breath in my lungs freezing painfully. I stared down into his simple, open face, and had a sudden, near-violent realization. 

Sami ran on pure, feral instinct. This didn't make him stupid, it didn't make him _simple_ of mind. It made his desires and thought process easy and pure. 

He wanted me, I was denying him. He couldn't understand any other reason for me to do this other than his own inadequacies. He didn't understand the laws of attraction as humans saw them. He saw only that I was his mate. And I was denying him. 

Instantly, my own confusion died in the face of the realization that I was letting stupid things hold me back from the devotion of someone who was miraculously trusting a human despite his traumatic, lonely past. 

So he was a man. So he had a prick rather than a pussy. So he was flat chested and his hip bones poked me while he slept. So he smelled like musk instead of perfume, and tended to act more like the cat than the man. So he thought a good courting gift was a dead rat in my bed. 

He wanted me with a ferocity I'd never seen from a woman before. He wanted me, and he was willing to give me anything— to spend months merely at my side, just to win me over. To face a fear that had kept him alone and on the run for nearly two decades, just to find me. To relearn how to speak, how to live among strangers, how to be human, just to earn the chance to love me.

He had done all of that, and I had been an idiot in my stubborn refusal to see his love and his care. I had been blind not to notice until it was pointed out to me how much I had already allowed myself to feel for this man. How much instinct seemed to have taken over while my conscious mind fought something simple and pure. 

_Fuck it_ , I thought as I dropped my lips to his and finally let myself take what he offered so freely and daringly.


	19. Death and Life

ROBERT—

Sami's excitement as my mouth took his was palpable. His body seemed to fall limp and yet cling to me all the tighter at the same time. His hands were everywhere, grabbing my arms, my back, my thighs, trying to yank me towards him and hold me there. His desperation was palpable, as was his fear. 

He was terrified I would pull away again. 

I tried to soothe him, calm him, with gentle kisses against his lips and by rubbing my palms up and down his thighs, amazed that I felt no revulsion. No strangeness that this was a _man_ beneath me. No, there was only excitement, lust, and affection. 

"Ssh, Sami," I comforted, laying a kiss against his cheek and pulling back just enough to glance at his face. He was flushed, his pupils completely dilated, his chest heaving. His small nipples were pebbled, pressing through the fabric of his shirt, and though they were set on a flat chest instead of the mounds I was used to, I wanted to bite and nibble and taste them. 

So I did. 

I bent down, lifting his shirt over his head. I let my tongue out, tracing a path around Sami's left nipple before I put it between my teeth and sucked. Hard. 

"Robert!" Sami cried out, his hips bucking up, seeking friction. His ankles tightened at my ass, and I was yanked forward until we were pressed chest-to-chest, groin-to-groin. "Mate. Mate, please. Mate me. Make me yours. Want you. Please, my Robert. Please love me."

I nodded as our lips met again, then again, until I was forced to pull back, gasping for air, his taste on my tongue, and lack of oxygen, making my head spin. 

"It's alright, Sami," I whispered against his lips with a smile, trying to calm down his frantic eagerness. "You win. You won; you've got me now. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. You won, Sami." 

My heart hammered and my smile deepened when Sami purred happily. Then his fingers were untying my breeches, his teeth gently sliding across my neck. A shiver ran down my entire body, my balls tightening as my plump cock began to harden against my breeches. 

My mind blanked and my breaths stuttered as Sami reached inside of my loosened breeches and tugged out my cock, his thin, cold fingers making me grit my teeth as they reached down, cupping my balls and massaging against the small bit of skin between my ass and my balls. 

"Sami, we can't—" I began, finally coming to my senses enough to remember we were in the lounge, out in the open where anyone could stumble in. Just because I was ready to admit defeat to Sami didn't mean I was ready for the world to see me have sex with the shifter. 

Sami shook his head, his tongue exploring my mouth as his fingers played beneath my breeches. I rocked against him, shutting my eyes and trying to force myself to pull away. 

Gods, it was more difficult than it should have been. 

I slipped my mouth from Sami's, pressing gentle kisses against his closed eyelids, then I smiled and smoothed my hands back and wrapped them both around his ass, pulling him up harder against me. 

Sami let me hold him against me, our breaths evening out, our bodies entwined, for only a few moments before he was pulling away, dropping his legs to the ground, then within another second he was on his knees, his mouth pressing gentle kisses against the bit of exposed skin above my breeches. I panted, my breaths heavy and loud and echoing in the silence left in the large, open lounge, as Sami pulled my breeches down just enough to free my hard cock. 

Sami's eyes met mine, the depths of his soul shining out of the swirling colors. Desire, lust, pure and unadulterated heat spilled from his eyes, but there was also the smallest hint of fear, the tiniest piece of hesitation, and gods above, so, so much love. 

My knees nearly buckled as I finally allowed myself to see Sami, wholly and without filter. He was so deeply in love with me, there was something akin to pain on his face. He was so devoted to me, I could ask him to cut off his own hand and he'd do it without question, for only the chance it would make me smile. 

That kind of power over another, over another _man_ , was not something I'd ever asked for, wanted, or ever even thought was possible. But with Sami...

At this point, I wasn't sure I wouldn't do the same, if Sami but asked and said it would make him happy. 

There was something terrifying about that, about giving someone else that kind of power and control over me. Not only that, but letting him see that he had it and could make me do whatever the fuck he wanted. It was terrifying, and it was suffocating, and it was nearly horrifying, but it was also exhilarating and passionately exciting. A taste of freedom, of security and stability in someone else I'd never known. 

Sami would never let me down, and he'd never leave me. He'd be mine until I said otherwise, and I wasn't sure anymore I'd ever want anyone but him. 

It was overwhelming, finally accepting this, because it was like it had been sitting there, just beneath my skin, ignored and pushed aside, tied in chains and never allowed to see the light of day, and then suddenly, I'd let it out into the light and it was devouring me whole. My feelings for Sami, I now knew, had been growing steadily, taking over my heart and soul, and now that I'd acknowledged them, they were free to completely overwhelm me, body and heart and soul and self. 

Sami was mine and I was his and it would be that way until the gods called me home. And that idea was... something I'd never thought I'd ever think about anyone, much less a man. 

Sami was a package I never could have anticipated. He was the soul of my love in a body I'd never wanted, but that I now found myself desiring with every piece of me. 

"Sami," I whispered, rolling my fingers down his cheek to cup his face as he stared up at me, his eyes wide, his face level with my cock. "Precious cat, you've got me now. You don't have to do this to win me over."

His eyes flashed with something dark and possessive, and then both of his hands were on my cock, one cupping my balls, the other so tight around the base of my prick it was nearly painful. 

"This is mine, mate," he said sternly, as if scolding me. I wanted to look away, to roll my eyes to the back of my head and groan, but Sami held my gaze and I refused to break his demanding stare. "This is mine, and I want to taste it."

His words, as always, were succinct, without artifice or loquacity, stubborn, with a heady dose of arrogance tinged with the smallest bit of insecurity. Insecurity I'd put there, and that I prayed I could help him rid himself of. 

"Yes, Sami. Fuck, please," I replied with a frantic nod of my head as the fingers around my balls began to knead them in a taunting, teasing dance. 

"My Robert?" Sami said, his breaths hitting the tip of my cock. I watched as a bead of precum dripped from the slit, drawing Sami's gaze as well. He licked his lips, as if imagining tasting the drop, and then his eyes were back on mine. "You're very pretty when you feel pleasure."

I froze, searching Sami's eyes. For what, I couldn't be sure. But I was positive he had been about to say something else, and had held himself back. 

And I didn't like that. 

I pushed his mop of curly, messy hair up out of his eyes, linking my fingers into the constant tangles on his head and scratching at his scalp a little. 

I opened my mouth, ready to ask him what was wrong, preparing to demand he finish what he'd really been about to say, but then his hot, pink tongue was swiping up the moisture at the head of my cock and all thought and sense fled. My knees shook, threatening to give out, and my hands in Sami's hair tightened so much I was afraid I was hurting him, but if I let go I feared I'd fall. 

"Sami, shit _fuck_!" I cried out as I twisted over him, nearly bending in half. His left hand still held and played with my balls, rotating them between his fingers, tugging on them gently, and pressing against my perineum every few moments. His right hand held my prick steady as he licked and nibbled up and down my cock, his tongue teasing and tasting. He licked up the copious drops of precum, then bent to take one of my balls in his mouth, sucking and licking, before releasing it back into his fingers and moving on to the next one. 

He licked his way back up my cock, his eyes flicking up to meet mine, probably half-crazed with lust and staring at him like a madman. He smiled around the head of my cock and I wanted to scream, to cry out, because that smile— gods, that smile, lips thin from being stretched around my prick, arrogant and happy, eyes glazed with lust, had my balls churning and my eyes rolling to the back of my head. That smile had my hands clenching in Sami's hair, my mouth stretching wide to scream out a warning. The sound caught in my throat, coming out as a strangled groan rather than any intelligible words, and then my cum was hitting the back of Sami's throat as I jerked against him. 

Held tight in Sami's grip, my vision whited as I helplessly, mindlessly pressed as deep into Sami's mouth as he could pull me. The moment the first drop of my cum hit his mouth, Sami made a whining, pleading, chirruping kind of noise, and the sensations of the vibrations of sound on my sensitive, mid-orgasm cock had me grunting and grinding out another few spurts of cum. 

Sami pulled away only when he'd cleaned my prick with lips and tongue, and I was mindlessly pushing his head away from my sensitized skin. 

"Please Sami," I adjured as he continued to lave my half-hard cock with his tongue, as if wanting it in his mouth until I was ready to get hard again. "It hurts, precious cat. C'mon, come up here.

I reached down and pulled him to his feet, his mouth reluctantly letting my cock drop, spent and soaking, to my thigh. It was only when he was on his feet before me, no longer hunched over my cock, that I could see the dark wet spot on the groin of his breeches. 

"Sami, did you come?" 

His nod and smile were sheepish as he shrugged and dug his face into my chest. My hands went up around him, rubbing up and down his back as he began to purr, gently at first, then getting louder and deeper as my fingers explored his naked back, sliding my fingers underneath his loincloth every other pass. 

"You taste better than Sera's candies, mate," he replied, and I chuckled. Gods, he'd come without a touch to his prick, just from the taste of me on his tongue? How was that even possible? 

"I'll have to take your word for it," I whispered against the top of his head as I pressed a kiss to the mop of messy curls. "Let's go upstairs now, Sami. I want to... I want to hold you. Ok? Do you... do you want me to hold you, Sami?"

Sami pulled away with a frown, his eyes meeting my own with frustration. "Robert, human words are confusing. Can't you just ask what you want? I want it, no matter what you're asking, but I wanna know what you want."

I chuckled and lifted Sami up, pulling his thighs around me until he hooked his ankles at my waist, marveling at the easy way he let himself be maneuvered into my arms, and the perfect fit of him against me. I pressed a gentle kiss to lips, my tongue just barely darting out to wet his bottom lip before I tugged it between my teeth. 

"I want to make love to you, Sami. I want to have sex with you."

"We just had sex, mate," Sami grumbled, but he was pliant in my arms, soaking in my kisses, looking almost as if he were preening against me as I kissed each lid, the tip of his nose, then each cheek, before moving back to his wet lips. "Not that I don't wanna again, I wanna over and over until we can't breathe for it, but why you gotta ask like it's something we haven't done before, when we _just did_?"

"You're not even going to try to make this easy for me, are you?"

"You didn't make it easy for me," Sami retorted with a mischievous smirk. I laughed and shook my head. 

"Touché," I said, then my smile dropped and I met Sami's gaze fully. 

"I want to put my cock in your ass, Sami. I want to fuck you— gods, I've never wanted to fuck someone like I want to fuck you, Sami. Can I? Will you let me, precious cat?" 

He hmm'd, as if considering my words, his hands coming up around my neck. And then he was smiling, pecking a kiss against my lips, and I rolled my eyes at his teasing. 

"Yes, my mate. I've wanted you inside me since I first caught your scent. It's where your cock was made to come, where your seed was meant to be released. Against my skin, or inside my body. Please, Robert, I've waited for you for so long."

"I know, precious cat," I replied somberly, a little taken aback by his serious, heartfelt, and yet very, very dirty words. "But I'm ready now, I think, and I'm sorry I kept you waiting "

Sami shrugged, his purring growing deep again as he dug his face up against my neck. I turned to the door, knowing by the way he was wrapped around me I'd never get him to walk on his own. I didn't mind— he weighed even less than he looked like he did. 

"I don't mind, mate. Because you're mine now— I would've waited until the worlds ended if it meant I could have my Robert as my mate."

My throat closed up and I blinked back the sudden heat in my eyes. The somber moment didn't last long, though, because as I began to walk towards the door and out of the lounge, Sami began rocking his hard-again prick up against my belly, his lips and teeth wreaking havoc against my neck and ear. 

His tongue licked up along my ear, then he bit the tip gently between his sharp teeth and began to suck it, nibbling and teasing. I nearly tripped, the bite of pain zinging down my spine and making my spent cock twitch just the smallest bit.

"Gods, you're going to kill me, Sami," I muttered as I started up the stairs, his mouth attached to my ear. 

"No, mate," he whispered, his tongue wetting the shell of my ear, then dipping inside and making me shudder. "I'm gonna be your life."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****#samisaMajorPowerBottom*****


	20. Made for You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Guys, the song Something Wild by Lindsey Stirling and Andrew McMahon fits Robert and Sami so so so much. Ugh I just can't get over it. It could work both ways— someone singing to Sami about Robert, or to Robert about Sami (though this one a little better). 
> 
> I gotta be honest, I was stupid smiling while writing this entire chapter. I've written kinky sex, healing sex, shy sex, desperate and possessive... Sex with laughter and flirting and teasing was a first. 
> 
> Anywho, enjoy, pervs ;) <3 *****

SAMI—

I was happy to hold onto my mate as he dragged me up the stairs and through the halls. I sucked on his ear, his neck, his lips, anything I could reach with my tongue and mouth. I sucked and bit a mark into the skin just beneath his ear, and my mate slipped a couple of steps. I laughed and set my teeth against his pulse point. He groaned, his big hands gripping my ass tighter to rock me up against him. 

"Behave, Sami," he grumbled, slapping my ass a little when I only laughed and bit down harder. "You're gonna pay for that, you damn brat."

It was too late for anyone to be awake, and our room was near the big open room with all the chairs and the giant fire we had been in, so we didn't pass anyone. I was glad, because I worried Robert might get scared and not mate me if anyone saw me clung onto him like this. 

I hooked my ankles at Robert's waist, just above his ass, my fingers dragging his shirt up. He fought me, pushing the hem back down with one hand as he held me against him with the other. But I was persistent, and my mate gave in with a frustrated sound. I crowed, lifting his shirt up over his head and letting it drop in the space between our bodies. I let my fingers slide along my mate's skin, brushing his nipples and making him shiver and lean down to bite my cheek. I laughed as he nipped at my cheek, then my nose, before he glared into my eyes. 

"Dammit, Sami, give me just a few more minutes to get to the room." 

"You're mine, Robert. Mine, right?"

My mate paused, his eyes doing a funny, sad kind of twinkle, before he turned away from looking right into my eyes and let me keep playing without answering me. 

He was mine. He had to be. I wouldn't accept anything else.

By the time Robert made it to the door of our room, his hands fumbling to turn the handle, I had both of our shirts dangling between us, held up only by our joined bodies. Both of our trousers were completely untied, Robert's big hands were half inside my loincloth at my ass, holding me up against this belly, and my mate was covered in marks I'd left on his neck, shoulders, chest, everywhere I'd been able to reach. 

Robert threw me on the bed, his dark eyes heavy with an annoyed kind of amusement and with lots of lust. Enough that I squirmed a little, waiting for my mate to take what was his all along. 

ROBERT—

Sami's hot, rough tongue teased me from the guard's lounge to my room. It only took all of five minutes to walk it normally, but with how slowly I was walking, and how often I had to pause to stop Sami from completely undressing me in the middle of the hall, it took nearly double that. I think I even made a wrong turn at one point, going in a circle through the halls to get back to my room. 

When I managed to slam the door shut and locked behind me, I took the four steps to my bed and threw Sami on it. Our bundle of shirts fell from his lap as he hit the bed, his eyes wide and so filled with lust and desire and frantic, all-consuming need I nearly fell to my knees at the enormity of the emotions. 

I watched him for a minute, his usually messy hair a tangled mess, his lips kiss-swollen and wet, his cheeks flushed and his nipples erect and pointed. He twisted a little, his knees knocking, thighs sliding together as he wiggled, and I chuckled when I saw he was thrusting his hips mindlessly up against his own trousers with his hard prick. 

"Robert, c'mon and mate me. You want me now, right?"

"Gods yes Sami, I do," I replied without any hesitation. I shook my head, trying to clear it, trying to form a coherent sentence that wasn't fuck. 

"You gonna mate me, Robert? Gonna put your penis inside of me and mark me with your cum?"

I grunted as I gripped the base of my cock through my loose, untied trousers, staving off what was nearly a premature orgasm. 

"Who taught you to talk like that, damn cat?" I grumbled. 

Once I was a little calmer, I leaned over and began to crawl onto the bed. Sami scuttled backwards, as if to run from me, laughing aloud when I grabbed his legs and yanked him back towards me, beneath me. I shoved myself between his thighs, my fingers digging into his hips to hold him down against the bed. He fought me a little, and I had to let go of his legs to grab his hands and pin them to the bed beneath him. He laughed, the sound bright and pure, and I couldn't help the return smile as I pretended to glare down at him. He flailed in my grip and I growled to try to calm him down. 

"So? Where'd you learn to talk like that, brat? I know I didn't teach you."

"Dasan," Sami said without hesitation as he continued to squirm and fight beneath me. "He said it's called dirty talk and no man can resist it." 

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "Yeah, I should've known."

Sami giggled and, still wriggling against me, licked a wet stripe across my cheek. I burst out laughing before pressing my mouth to Sami's and thrusting my tongue in as revenge. He moaned, his own laughter dying down a little as he wrapped his legs up and around me, hooking his ankles around my ass and grinding up against me. I let his hands go and ground my own hips down against him, making Sami's breath catch against my lips. 

"Robert," he whined, his fingers immediately moving to tug at my trousers. I let him work, pushing his down as well, until we were panting, staring at each other, skin-to-skin. I studied him a moment, smiling a little as I trailed a finger down his stomach and he jerked, sucking his belly in, and laughed breathlessly. 

He was ticklish. That was something I'd have to file away for later. 

He was still thin, but not sickly like he'd been when he'd first come to Teren. His ribs weren't visible beneath his skin, and his cheeks had plumped enough they were round and almost cherubic now. His hips were only slightly rounded, his ass plush and compact, and his legs long and lean. 

He was decidedly small, but masculine. And yet I felt myself more drawn to him that I'd ever been to any woman. 

He fidgeted beneath me even worse than before, though I could hardly tell if he was trying to push towards me or escape from beneath me. He reached over and I watched as he pulled a small vial of something from the pocket of his trousers I'd just thrown to the side of the bed. He pushed it into my hand, then his tongue was pressing against my nipples and I groaned and threaded my fingers through his mop of tangled hair. 

"Fuck, Sami," I growled, holding him agaisnt my nipple as I looked down and met his eyes. "Why does that feel so fucking good?"

Sami snorted against me but didn't answer, turning his attention back to turning my nipples into tiny spots of pain and zings of pleasure that pooled directly into my balls. 

I pulled the vial up, realizing it was bed oils. With a roll of my eyes, I brandished it to Sami and asked, "Dasan?"

Sami pulled away from my nipples only enough to shoot me a tooth-filled smirk, clearly say, "Sera," then he was back to nibbling on the little nubs of pleasure I'd never even thought to explore for myself. 

I groaned, a mix of embarrassed that Lady Sera had given Sami bed oils, and nearly mindless with lust. Sami pulled away from both hot, now-red nipples when I opened the oils. He took some into his fingers, then his hand was rolling up and down my cock, spreading the thick liquid across my skin and making my mind nearly blank with the pleasure of his hot, tight grip around my cock. 

"Sami, I've never done this before," I grit out, lowering my face to his neck to hide it as my face lit aflame with embarrassment. "Not with a man, at least. I..."

"It's alright, Robert," Sami cooed as he lifted his hips up, using his legs around me as leverage. He positioned my cock, and it wasn't until I felt heat against the head that I realized he was touching my prick to his hole. "I haven't ever done this either, with man or a woman. So we'll do this for our first time together, deal?"

I chuckled and gently pressed a kiss to his neck, leaving a trail of them as I pulled up enough to look down at him. 

"Yeah, Sami," I whispered, kissing his lips, then his forehead, each cheek, and his lips again. He whimpered, his hips twitching as he closed his eyes against the gentle affection I laved on his skin. "Yeah, deal."

SAMI—

Dasan had told me a little about how to prepare my ass for my mate's cock, as had Sera, and Lhiam, whom I was pretty sure had been forced by his mate, because he kept looking back at the dog as he talked to me, his face red as a fruit. I thought it was funny, the way Lhiam stuttered and blushed and made little choking sounds when he had to talk about body parts, so I asked him lots of questions. As many as I could think of. And I got away with it for a while, because Lhiam would look back at the dog whenever I asked a question, and the dog would make a "go ahead" motion, and Lhiam would spit out the answer. But when I started to run out of silly questions and the silly questions got obnoxious, Lhiam figured out what I was doing and rolled his eyes. 

"Gods, you damn brat," he grumbled, then pushed past me as I fell over laughing. I gripped my belly and cried a little as Lhiam stomped away from me and to his mate. 

The dog looked a little surprised and confused, but when Lhiam reached him, he explained. 

"He's teasing us, sweetheart," Lhiam said with a glare back at me. "Now, let's go— all this talk has me, ah, wanting some alone time."

The damn wolf still looked confused, and like he wanted to stay, but Lhiam dragged him away. 

I laughed for so long after, Robert kept asking me what I'd done. But I didn't tell him, because then I'd have to tell him that all of his friends were aware he wouldn't know what to do sexually with a man, and knew to come to me rather than him, so that he didn't push them away and then not know what to do when the time came. 

Since Dasan had walked me through opening myself up, with fingers and oils, I'd practiced a few times. I didn't do it to pleasure myself, only ensure that when the time came, I was ready and could pull my mate into my body without having to wait. Just in case the time it took to prepare me gave him the time to change his mind. 

Now, I knew I was ready, because I'd only opened myself up that afternoon, during a boring lull in the afternoon. I probably should have prepared myself at least a little anyways, but I was terrified my mate would change his mind. And I couldn't let him do that. 

I pulled my mate's cock up, pressing him against my hole, and bore down on it, just like Sera had told me to. Dasan's talk had been mostly how to open myself or Robert up safely, but Sera had been very firm about giving me tips about how to not feel pain, and especially how to feel pleasure with the penetration. 

"If you feel pain, you're doing it wrong," she insisted, flinching as if at a stray thought. "It should ache and feel kind of hot and stretching and full, but if there's pain— especially a sharp, shooting pain, stop _immediately_ and open yourself up further, or take a break. Sami, if your partner doesn't wait for you to be open and relaxed properly and safely, he's not worth your time. You don't hurt yourself for _anyone_. Do you understand me?"

Now, as I took just the tip of my mate's penis in my ass, I felt no pain. My mate was slicked enough that all I felt was what Sera had told me to expect— heat and stretch and fullness. It was strange, and not wholly pleasant, but there wasn't any pain. 

"Dammit, Sami," Robert hissed, yanking out of me and away, staring down at me with horror and concern arcing across his face. "You can't just shove my dick up your ass. We have to prepare you. I may not be an expert on sex with men, but I know that much."

I shook my head and knelt up. I turned my back to my mate, presenting my ass, then reached around and fingered my hole. 

"I practiced, mate," I said softly, pushing two fingers into my ass at once and groaning at the stretch and the emptiness where my mate had been and now wasn't anymore. "I'm ready for you. My hole is ready to be claimed by my mate."

"You..." Robert's voice cracked and I looked back, watching as he stared intently as I pushed my fingers in and out of my hole. "You practiced?"

"Dasan," I said with a breathy laugh and a shrug, and then Robert was meeting my eyes, something hot and full on his face.

My mate rolled his eyes, then knee-walked back over to me. He pulled my fingers out of my ass, then shoved me, his big palm against my upper back so I was on my hands and knees in front of him, my ass propped up in the air. His fingers on my ass cheeks were hesitant at first, but then he was gripping my flesh, pulling the cheeks apart. 

One finger gently slid over the creased, sensitive skin around my asshole and a full body shiver rolled across my entire body. I gripped the sheets of the bed, squirming away from my mate's touch. He grunted out an amused sound, then yanked my hips back, his thighs pressing against the back of mine, his cock sliding along my ass and back. 

"Hold still, brat," Robert whispered, then his fingers were back to poking and sliding gently along my hole. 

Without any warning, he slid just the tip of his finger into my hole and I cried out with the sharp edge of pleasure that sparked through me, precum dripping down onto the bedsheets as I fought my mate's hold and wiggled my hips. He held me tight, pushing his finger in and out, in and out, and when I looked back, he was staring at where his finger disappeared into my body with a funny, concentrating look on his face.

"It's so small. How is my cock going to fit inside here, Sami?"

"It'll fit, my mate. I was made to have you inside me."

Robert's frown deepened, and then he was using his second finger too and I bit the bedsheets in frustration and teasing, tentative pleasure. 

"Robert, please," I begged, whiny and desperate. "Put it in me. Please?"

Robert pulled away, twisting me around easily. I landed on my back, scrabbling back instinctively, trying half-heartedly to escape his grip. My mate just snorted and yanked my hips back so we were cock-to-hard-cock. I hipped up, thrusting against my mate's penis as he bent down and licked at my nipples, then licked his tongue up to press inside my mouth. 

When he was preoccupied, I reached down and pressed his cock against my entrance. Again. I bore down, and my mate groaned as I again took the head of his cock inside my body. 

"See, Robert?" I cooed, purring a little when my mate's hips started to thrust almost against his will, pushing him just a tiny bit further inside, little by little. "I was always made to be yours."

Robert nodded, licking my lips, and then he was steadily pushing forward. I kept my hips up, my legs around Robert's body holding me up so he could penetrate me fully. He pressed in slow, gentle, his mouth never leaving mine even as we both began to heave with pleasure. 

"Mate!" I cried when Robert bottomed out inside me, his balls smashed against my ass. 

Robert pulled away from my gasping mouth to stare down at where we were joined, a look of wonder and heat on his face. Then he was looking back up at me and smiling. 

"It fits perfectly, doesn't it?"

"Yes," I breathed, my eyes fluttering as my mate lowered himself down so our bodies were pressed together, my hard prick caught between our bellies. "Yes, I was made to have your penis inside me, Robert."

Robert kissed my lips, sucking them into his mouth, between his teeth, and then he was kissing me all over— my neck and shoulders and cheeks. My forehead and my chin. I reached my fingers up, holding his face between them, and he turned his head to kiss and lick at my hands and my palms too. 

"You ready for me to move, Sami?" Robert asked after only a few more moments of him loving on my body, waiting for my body to get used to his welcome invasion. I nodded nearly frantically, then began to scream as loud as I could when his hips began to move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****mwahahaha see ya on Monday *blows kiss * *****


	21. Like Mate and Mine and Candy and My Robert

ROBERT—

With the first thrust of my hips against Sami's body, pleasure exploded down my spine and my entire body shook with the need for release. He was tight, and so hot I nearly flinched in pain as my cock carved out a place inside of his body. Sami's cries of pleasure added to my own lack of control, making it difficult to even see straight. 

I leaned over, pulling Sami up into my arms. I had to curl into myself a little with the difference in our height, but I managed to put my mouth to his. My arms wrapped around him, looping down his back to cup his ass and hold him up for my gentle thrusts. Sami kept his own arms around my body, his feet digging into my ass as he held onto me as if he were drowning and I was the lifeline that had been thrown to him. With the change in angle my moves brought, Sami's screams grew nearly frantic. I huffed out a frustrated laugh and paused, pulling away from his mouth to stare into his eyes.

"Sami, the entire keep can hear you. Bite the bed sheets or something." 

Sami shook his head, his eyes closed as he arched his back, heedless of the loud, impatient cries that left his mouth, his hips moving against me since mine had stopped. I lifted one hand away from his ass and dragged a handful of sheets towards him. He turned his head and snapped his teeth at the sheets, nearly biting my fingers as I pushed the sheets towards his mouth. He glared up at me, his eyes flashing with defiance, and I rolled my own.

"Damn brat," I muttered, sitting up on my knees and yanking him up with me. He followed easily, fluidly, and I grumbled at how easily he let me move him, but then he was so stubborn over the stupidest things. He groaned deep in his throat as I settled him straddling my lap, deeply impaled and whimpering, his mouth pressed against my neck.

"Mate," he whined, suckling at the sensitive spot of my neck, right where my neck met my shoulder. 

"Keep your mouth on my neck, Sami," I replied, then began to thrust up into him again, my thighs spread to give me leverage. He cried out loudly once, but then his sounds were mostly muffled by his lips smashed against my neck. He licked and nibbled, making zings of sparkling pleasure shoot down to my balls. 

Sami dug his heels into the bed behind me and used it as leverage to bounce his hips up and down, deepening my thrust and meeting me halfway with loud slaps of skin on skin. His body was wrapped around me so tightly neither of us could move more than a few inches at a time, but the pleasure wasn't lessened in the least that I was basically rocking in and out of him. 

"Ah, mate, ah, ah," he mumbled against my ear, his tongue licking in and swirling around. I moaned— why the fuck did that feel so good?—and my fingers tightened on his ass, digging into his skin in a way I knew must be painful, when his teeth nipped torturously against the top of my ear. But I couldn't stop. I couldn't let up, even a little. The all encompassing pleasure made me nearly blind with want and need. 

Sami's desperation grew as his prick dripped a steady stream of precum against my stomach, his balls rubbing up and down my stomach with each thrust of my hips, each bounce of his body. His eyes flashed, growing darker, the pupils elongating. His teeth grew sharper as he leaned away and glared me down, his lips pulled back in a snarl. He hissed, high and keening, his nails— claws now— dug into my shoulders, his back arched. His eyes never leaving mine, he shuddered, his hissing growing into a near-scream, then there was heat on my stomach and he was shaking against me. I glanced down and bucked hard up into him at the sight of white liquid shooting up and out of his twitching cock, mixing with the hair on my stomach and groin. 

Sami hissed continously as his cock spurted the thick liquid onto my skin, and then he fell limp against me, his breaths hitting my sweat-and-spit-soaked chest in heavy, hot puffs. I stopped moving, afraid he would be sensitive after he'd just come, but he whined and glanced up at me, his face still half-shifted into his bobcat, his eyes huge and nearly glowing with the beast inside his soul. 

"My Robert, don't stop. Don't ever stop, please," he said clearly, his fangs flashing dangerously with each word. 

"You're not too sensitive? I don't want to hurt you, Sami," I whispered, kissing his sweat-soaked hair and gently running my fingers up and down his back. My cock twitched and spasmed inside his body, making me flinch at its demanding moves. 

"No, my mate," Sami replied with a small chuckle. "I waited a long time, and my cat likes you inside me. I'm not gonna be done until neither of us can move."

I laughed and shook my head. "You're gonna be the death of me," I whispered. 

Sami grumbled out a laughing murmur and, just as he had only earlier that night, stated, "No, mate, I'm gonna be your life. You're already mine," he added. 

With the words, I began to move again, Sami's kitten licks against my skin driving me to hip up harder and harder into his body. His prick had never softened at all, staying perfectly erect against my belly button as he jerked in my arms. He held his own arms around my shoulders, his face digging into my chest, and now only held on as I rode out the pleasure his body was giving my own. 

Miraculously, he came again only a few minutes later, crying out and whimpering against my nipple, which he had been biting and nibbling mindlessly on. A little less cum came out the second time, but the convulsions around my cock were nearly violent as he jerked and shook against me. This time, though, I didn't stop, only thrust harder, quicker, chasing my own release. 

He mumbled something wordlessly as he ran his claws down my back, his legs tightening around me, snuffling as he dug himself deeper into my chest as his hips again began to meet my thrusts. The sensation of his claws was a prickling of awareness of possible pain— they were sharp, and could very easily draw blood if he desired. Sami lifted himself up, sniffing and licking at my neck, before he set his teeth against my skin and scraped them gently down.

"Fuck, Sami," I whispered, twisting my neck to give him access. He laughed a little breath, then repeated the motion, making my balls draw up tight. I groaned, my thrusts growing frantic and strained, erratic and harsh. "Fuck yes, Sami."

SAMI—

"You gonna come, Robert? You gonna come inside me?" I asked, my mate's cock stretching me wide, his body covered in sweat as his skin heated mine. His big body that I was wrapped around was so hot I purred at the way he felt in my arms. I'd peaked twice, and I could feel a third time painfully churning in my balls. I was ready for it, my hips moving against my mate, my body desperate for this last time, this release that I knew would tear me inside out in the most pleasurable and painful way. 

"Yeah, Sami," my mate answered with a groan as I kept my fangs rolling up and down his neck. "Yeah, I'm going to come, Sami. I can come inside, right? I don't have to pull out?"

"Don't you dare pull out, Robert," I hissed, angry at even the idea of him wasting his seed outside my body. 

Robert laughed and I rolled my eyes. My mate thought the strangest things were funny. But then his hips were doing a twisting, writhing motion, keeping himself inside me but squirming around deep inside, and all thought fled. Before I knew what I was doing, my teeth were gripping Robert's neck much harder than I'd wanted. I didn't draw blood, but only barely, and I knew it had to hurt. But instead of being angry, my mate made a gurgling, grumbling noise, and his hands on my hips grew painful as he hipped up into me. I felt his heat explode inside of me, his cock swelling as he released inside my body. He slammed into me, his hands on my hips holding me steady so he could release his seed as deeply into my body as he could manage to reach. 

"Sami!" he yelled, hoarse and deep-throated. "Sami, fuck, yes!"

I met my mate's final thrusts, my prick rubbing against his belly, my teeth never leaving his neck, and finally, finally as he began to fall still, I grabbed the base of my cock, my mate's still lodged deeply inside me. It took one stroke before my mind exploded and I released just a tiny drop of cum against my mate's belly. And that final orgasm was just as painful, just as soul-shattering, just as wonderful, and I'd known it was going to be. 

I pulled my mouth away, licking at the mark of my teeth on my mate's neck. "I'm sorry, Robert," I whispered sadly, tasting blood just beneath the tiny bit of skin I hadn't bitten through. I licked him gently, sorrowfully, and I felt Robert vibrate a little beneath me. 

Goddess, my mate thought the strangest things were funny.

"S'okay, Sami. Made me come," Robert grumbled with another little chuckle, and then he squeezed me tighter in his arms a little and I knew he wasn't mad at me for hurting him. "I don't know _why_ it did, but fuck it, it did."

My mate slipped backwards, drawing me with him as he flattened himself on his back on the bed. He kept himself firmly lodged inside me even as he began to soften, and I sprawled atop his chest, my cum cooling and drying sticky and itchy between us. 

My body was sore, shaking a little with my multiple releases, my eyes drooping as my mate's breaths evened peacefully. He said something, but I didn't hear it as my breaths began to match his, then pitched deeper, and I fell asleep, falling into dreams of my mate, our future, and how much my life had changed in what felt like such a short time. 

ROBERT—

Sami's heat on my chest, his deep purring and sweaty, completely limp body, sprawled across my body heedlessly, had me stupidly smiling in a way I'd be embarrassed about if anyone was there to see it. As it was, I allowed myself the smile and pulled Sami closer against me. He had been so patient with me as I came to accept my feelings for him, despite his innate and complete lack of patience with anything, and I was grateful for him. Likely from a young age, I'd been taught that what Sami and I had shared was wrong and dirty and shameful. It was sinful and an abomination in the eyes of the gods. 

But the way Sami watched me. The way he clung to me, as if I was a lifeline he would drown without. The way I caught myself smiling with just his being near, or laughing at his antics even on days where laughter seemed far away. How he watched me with his big, gorgeous eyes wide with concentration, as if studying the way I moved was his purpose in life. And the way he touched me as if he was desperate for just my skin against his. Not even sexually, just... just to _touch me_. To feel me against him. 

None of that was wrong, it wasn't shameful, and if the gods condemned it, they were no gods of mine. 

I loved him, and it had taken me hurting him and pushing him away for months, watching his persistence and his love for me, to realize that. And nothing about that was dirty. 

I only realized I had fallen to sleep when I woke in a stupor but with a hot, persistent pressure against my cock. I snapped awake when the pressure tightened, loosened, and rolled agonizingly slowly up to my head to suckle the sensitive slit of my penis. 

Through the night, Sami had woken me repeatedly, one way or another— already riding my cock, his hips moving in a way that had me near orgasm within seconds, sliding the wet head of his own along my lips, biting my nipples, or like now, his mouth engulfing my hard, aching prick. Each time, we'd pleasured each other to orgasm, I'd haphazardly cleaned us both of our joined releases as well as I could, then passed out again. Around dawn, I'd cleaned us up a little more thoroughly, thinking that would be the last time, that Sami couldn't possibly want more from me, but now, only a few hours later as far as I could tell from the light streaming in through the window, I could see I'd been wrong. 

"Dear gods, Sami," I groaned, my hands automatically sliding across his scalp to hold his head gently against my groin. My fingers tangled in his mess of curls, the nails digging into his skin. "You're ridiculously good at that, damn cat."

Sami's chuckle sent a wave of pleasure down my prick and my hips jerked up automatically, pushing my cock down his throat. He didn't even flinch, only closed his eyes and hummed around my sensitive, over-sensitive length. 

It took only another minute before I was grunting out a curse, coming directly into his throat, aftershocks making me groan as he swallowed my release, his throat working around my sensitive prick. He pulled away, wiped spit and what cum he hadn't swallowed from his lips, and smirked up at me. 

"You taste so good," he said huskily, his voice hoarse from what my cock had done to his throat. "Like mate and mine and candy and like my Robert."

Then I was on him, my left hand cupping his balls, my right sliding smoothly up and down his hard cock, ready to learn how to do this. Ready to practice and reciprocate Sami's attention to my body. All night we'd traded pleasure, but it had mostly been with me inside of Sami, or him thrusting our pricks together, or his mouth on my cock. Except for the one time he'd practically climbed atop me and thrust himself into my mouth, his thin hips moving languidly as his own mouth swallowed my cock and made me groan against the appendage nearly down my throat. But even then, I'd only kept my mouth open and tried not to gag, wondering at the scents, the sensations of his hot prick in my mouth— I hadn't really moved to pleasure him. Now, I was confident enough to try to reach out and learn what made him feel good. 

He came adorably fast, calling out my name, his back arched. His cum coated my fingers and I chuckled as I wiped it against the sheets beside him, dipping down to lick at his open, breathless mouth. 

"I'm learning quick, huh?" I joked, and Sami's eyes rolled back as he moaned. 

"My mate, you are perfect," he replied, his voice serious, drawing a laugh from me as I pecked my lips against his.


	22. Kind of Amazing

ROBERT—

Once we had caught our breath, again, we dressed and I led Sami out of my room for breakfast. I was surprised he didn't shift into his cat form, and instead followed me wearing the clothes Emma had made for him that I'd paid for. They fit him perfectly, showing off his small, pert ass and almost petite body and chest. Though he wasn't in his cat form, he still moved like one, stalking gracefully, silently at my side. If he didn't say something every once in a while, I wouldn't even know he was there. 

As we walked, his eyes were on me more often than not, and I eventually turned to him when we were near the barracks' mess hall. 

"What's wrong, Sami?"

His answer, as always, was succinct and without any bit of hesitation.

"I want to hold your hand," he said, his voice a bit of a pout. 

I laughed, shaking my head as I held my hand out to him. He studied me for a moment, watching my hand, then my face, then back to my hand. 

"You are not embarrassed or ashamed that we mated, my Robert?" he asked, his voice a little small, quiet and timid. Something I didn't think I'd ever heard from him. 

I considered his words. I should be. I should be ashamed and upset that last night I'd pushed past every acceptable sexual and social line I'd been raised on. But I just couldn't muster the energy to be anything but hungry and tired. I wanted to get breakfast, and then I wanted to go back to my room and test Sami's soreness. 

So no, I didn't give a shit if anyone saw us holding hands. We had before— before I'd given in to Sami, before I'd let myself fall for him so deeply I couldn't even pinpoint when I'd hit the bottom— if I ever had. Everyone already thought we were together. So why would now any different? Just because it was ... true?

"We've held hands before, Sami. It's not any different," I explained, clenching my fingers in a beckoning gesture to try to get him to grab onto me. 

His eyes flashed with hurt, though looking back on what I'd said, I wasn't sure what I'd said wrong. 

"It's different for me, mate," he whispered, before sliding a cold, clammy hand almost limply into mine. 

I opened my mouth, ready to push him for what had upset him, but he dragged me along before I was able to form a single word. I shook my head and rolled my eyes, then followed after him obediently. 

When we made it into the barracks' mess hall, only a handful of men remained— it was rather late in the morning for us to be coming for breakfast. Dasan and Nibley looked up and immediately broke out into loud, choked guffaws at the sight of us, and I could feel my cheeks heat in embarrassment. 

They knew. At first sight. 

How did they know? How was that possible?

A group of men sat a ways away from Dasan and Nibley, but they barely glanced up for a moment before looking back down to their own breakfasts. I tried to ignore them as Sami and I walked up to Dasan and Nibley. 

Nibley ribbed Dasan to chastise him, trying to straighten his own amusement from his face. He turned to me and made a motion, as if to brush something from his top lip. I frowned, raising my brows in question, and he snorted and made the move again. 

I tentatively reached up and brushed my own upper lip and felt mortification run through me as I touched something dried and crusty on my skin, across my top lip and a little in the scruff that had grown overnight. I rubbed it off with the back of my hand as Nibley and Dasan continued to try to calm themselves. My face flamed so hot I could feel it as I practically scrubbed at my mouth. 

Sami huffed in annoyance, rolling his eyes and glaring up at me— as if angry I was brushing his dried cum off my lips. As if I should have kept it there. He sighed and looked away, his eyes glancing around the room a few times before he made a strange, full body shudder movement and stalked towards the food. 

"He ok?" Nibley asked as I sat across from them. 

"He'll live," I grumbled, making Dasan snort in amusement. 

"And you?"

"I'm..." I stopped, meeting Nibley's eyes and wanting to open up— about my confusion, my continued lack of interest in any man but Sami, my joy that I'd maybe found someone I could spend the rest of my life with, even if he was in a package I never could have anticipated. My fear that I was feeling too much, far too soon. And yet it wasn't— I'd known Sami for months. 

But I held back, shaking my head and taking a deep breath in, not wanting to vomit all my swirling emotions on my friends. Not even sure how to pinpoint or articulate most of them. 

"I'm kind of amazing," I said with a smile that I knew was maybe a little smarmy and a lot sappy.


	23. Hark and His Asa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of sexual slavery and gang rape. Just mentions, not too descriptive. Also, if you don't follow my blog or anything, the two characters in the following chapter have their own book— it's book 2 of the Strange Magics Series, and their third is someone you all know if you've read my Far From Home Series :):) *****

HARKYN—

Decades, I'd walked the earth beneath me. Decades, and decades further, for more than three centuries, I'd walked all of Nefiir alone. My family lost when I'd been but a child in the scheme of my immortal life, my sister Ash lost to me when she was only just coming into her power, my father and mother and baby brother and sister all killed. 

For me. For my idiocy and arrogance. I was young, and thought myself invincible. I was a spirit witch, after all, my power given to me by Vunei herself. 

For my arrogance and immature power lust, my family had been massacred. I'd been nearly invincible, but they had suffered in my place. 

I had spent centuries now traveling Nefiir, no destination in mind but one: find another. Just one other like me, whom I could spend my time with, maybe not be so fucking alone. Not even romantically, just... someone to talk to, someone who didn't fear me when I walked into a room. Someone who didn't flinch when I looked their way. 

Someone I could talk to and not feel afraid they had an ulterior motive for spending their moments with me. 

For three centuries I had failed. 

Until today. Yes, Vunei willing, I had found him. Not whom I had expected, to be sure. I had thought to find another spirit witch, not a young panther shifter, terrified and broken and disfigured. But gods, after three centuries alone, he was godsdamned perfect. 

The shifter, eyes the color of the dark leaves beneath our feet, slanted in huge eyes that were heavy lidded and dark with despair, was naked, his ribs protruding from his warm ivory colored skin sharply, his legs and arms long and lanky and too thin. 

He was maybe in his late teens, possibly early 20s, I wasn't sure exactly, his light black hair hanging in tangled locks down his back. He had an almost androgynous face, his jaw sharp but his cheek bones prominent and soft. His brows were thick and hung heavy over smoky eyes lined with smeared kohl. He was tall, and I could see he was young enough that he may grow even taller, already only a handful of inches shorter than my six-foot-four frame. 

His lips were a perfect, pearly pink, and they looked kiss-swollen— possibly bite-swollen, too— and trembled with the tears that still leaked down his cheeks, smearing the makeup around his eyes even further. 

He stared me down, his eyes assessing me as mine did him. There was something about his soul that called to mine, and when I saw the proti collar around his throat that held his panther locked in chains within him, I wanted to rip it off and throw it into the brush behind me, but I knew that violent move would frighten him. 

Especially since he smelled of the dark pleasures of men, wore naught but his skin and the marks of hard use, and had smears of blood on his thighs and mouth. 

Rage the likes of which I hadn't felt in almost three centuries coursed through my body, and it took everything inside me not to do what I knew would frighten him so much: tear that damn collar from his neck and give him the power to end those who had so obviously violated him. 

"I won't hurt you," I whispered in Common, hoping he spoke the language. He looked as if he had just a little bit of Akaran blood, and with the panther tied up inside his soul by the binding collar, I knew that to be true, so I prayed he didn't speak Akari. It was one of the few languages I didn't speak fluently, only a handful of words. "My name is Hark. What is yours, dear one?"

The boy met my eyes for only a moment before he shifted his feet, as if to run. But then his eyes were narrowing and he was sniffing the air, confusion marring his brow. 

—Asa— he replied with his hands, the fingers spelling out the letters, cocking his head and licking his lips. The sight had my prick twitching in my trousers, and I cursed the damn excitable appendage. The boy was clearly brutalized, and I was a disgusting man for the way my body was trying to react to him. I'd never pretended to be a moral, or even a good man, but not being a complete monster was something I strove for. —My name... is Asa.—

I'd learned Common Sign Language years before because it was a language spoken by many slaves. There were plenty of masters who didn't like their slaves to talk or gossip about them, or who just thought a slave's voice was pointless, so their vocal chords were cut. This man, then, must be a slave, though I knew slavery was outlawed in this part of the world and had been for years. 

"I can help you, dear Asa. I can free your cat. Would you like that?"

His nod was immediate, and within a breath the collar was clanking to the earth at his bare feet. He stared down at it, as if horrified and shocked all at once. Then he was glancing back up at me, moving closer, his nostrils flaring with heaving breaths of my scent. 

—What are you, Hark?— he asked, his fingers shaking with his excitement at the release of his beast. 

"I'm a spirit witch and, I suspect, your mate," I replied, shuddering as the young man moved so close to me we shared the same body warmth. And then his mouth and nose were pressed against my neck as he took my scent inside his body. 

_There is one missing_ , he thought as his lips and teeth brushed against the sensitive skin below my ear. I heard the thought, carried loud and clear across our bond, made more tangible, nearly a physical link, by my magic. 

"Yes," I nearly moaned at the feel of him against me. 

_We have a third_.

"Yes."

_We will find them, but not for... a time. They are not yet ready._

"Yes."

He pulled away and looked into my eyes in wonder at my replies to his silent thoughts. Then, he grew serious and bit his lip. 

—My mate,— he signed. —You are powerful, and your magic is great, is it not? Will you avenge me?—

I growled and pulled away, brushing my thumb down the young man's cheek, rubbing at the smears of kohl where tears or sweat, or both, had carried it from his eyes to streak down his face. 

The sounds of men on horses came nearer and I glared towards the sound before turning back to my new mate. My strong, broken, hurting and anguished mate. 

With my fingers on his skin, I allowed myself to see the last few hours he had endured at the hands of evil men. 

Flashes of being dressed up in pretty, sheer, women's clothes, forced to dance and entertain a hunting party of noblemen, a thing he was used to in his years as a sex slave to a local lord. Though the practice of slavery in this empire had been outlawed for over a decade, my Asa had never been freed, being seen as less than human, because of the beast in his soul. Flashes of rape after rape, the nobles taking turns violating his body as he screamed with pain and begged them and the gods for mercy. 

Then finally, their laughter as they made him run, as they decided he would be their final entertainment. For what was more enjoyable to hunt than a man? What more dangerous than a man who shared his soul with a wild beast? What better sport than a wild mage, for a challenging hunt?

I let my fingers drift down, rubbing at a dried flake of a rapist's cum on my mate's neck before meeting his eyes. Behind him, the sounds of the men on horseback came clearer, their hounds bugling as they neared the source of the scent they hunted. 

"You should understand, dear Asa, I am not a good man. I am not a merciful man. I have lived a long time, killed many, innocent or not, I cared not. I will admit to you I even enslaved some, working with men who made slaves out of the free. 

"For all this, these men will not die well. But you are mine now, and I protect what is mine. I will end them, and I will not stop until you have been properly avenged. Do you accept this?"

—Yes,— he answered without a hint of hesitation. —I accept your claim and your vengeance. I see the darkness in your soul, I smell it, and I accept it. Use it to make them hurt, as retribution for the hurts they have bestowed upon me for so long.—

"As you wish, dear Asa."


	24. The Cottage

SAMI— 

I thought my mate was happy. I thought I was pleasing him, and that he was beginning to see how we were meant to be together, how well we fit. For many days since my mate finally claimed me, I'd thought he was happy and would move past his embarrassment and shame of mating me with time. He just needs time, I thought. He needed me to be patient, just like I'd been when he'd had to accept that he was mates to a male bobcat shifter. 

I suppose I'd been wrong, huh? 

My mate told me he had a surprise for me after he left his duties for the night, which was how I ended up here, staring at the cute little cottage next to the lake I enjoyed swimming in when the days got real hot. My mate gestured to the cottage, smiling a weird sort of happy-embarrassed smile. 

"It's... this is your home now, Sami. Do you like it?"

I turned from my mate, out to the setting sun just past the lake, the colors of the sunset like paint spilled into the waters. It was very pretty, and somehow that just made me angrier; sadder. 

I held back the annoying tears that threatened to spill, my confusion high. I had been pleasing him. I knew I had. So why... why did he want to hide me away here, so far from his home? Would he come to visit me? I had known my mate was embarrassed by our relationship, because he always wiped me from his skin and he never told anyone I was his mate. I was still just Sami. He was shamed by me and by how prevalent my cat was— how feral I was— but to go to this extent to hide it from his friends, from the other humans? 

Maybe I truly had made a mistake, pushing him the way I had. Maybe I should'a kept my hands to myself. 

"Do you like it, Sami?" my mate asked again, and the hope and hesitation in his voice made me flinch. 

I turned to him and smiled, making sure my face was clear of tears before I did. I couldn't let him see how much he hurt me, or he may give up and make me leave. And no matter how much it hurt to be with him and how lonely I would be here in this place, hidden away, it was better'n not having him at all.

"I like it," I lied, going to my mate and falling to my knees, reaching for his breeches, to try to hide my reaction to his pushing me away. I'd been excited when he told me he had a surprise for me; I'd thought it would be something sparkly or something to eat. 

"Wait, Sami," Robert said, pushing against my shoulders and grabbing my arms, pulling me to my feet. "What's wrong? You're upset."

My mate didn't want me. Not really. He was ashamed of me and his attraction to me, because if there was one thing I'd learned while among the humans, it was that I didn't belong.

I wanted to cry, because I didn't understand what I could possibly do to make my mate happy, and to make him keep me. He was gentle when we mated, he never complained about the bruises and even the cuts I inflicted on him in my desperation to get closer, feel more, taste him fully, pull him inside me as deep as he could go. I had even seen him gazing in the little looking-glass he used to shave in the mornings with a gentle smirk on his lips, fingers caressing a bite mark on his neck. But then he chose this home, where he could keep me out of sight of the other humans, embarrassed he had given into my advances, and my confusion grew. 

What was so wrong with me, that made my mate feel shame enough to hide me away?

ROBERT—

Things moved along the same as they had for the next week or so after I finally gave in to Sami's courting, with a glaring difference. 

At night, and in the mornings, Sami proved again and again that we were as compatible sexually as it was possible for two people to be. We fucked in so many positions and for so long each night I gained the illogical fear I may actually fuck my dick clean off. Sami's tight ass and wicked tongue proved to me I had been missing out my entire life without him. Some of the things he did to me... gods, I blushed just thinking about them. 

What was almost stranger was how full of _joy_ our coupling was. Sex before Sami had always been a need— something I did with women only when my body craved it and I couldn't hold off anymore. With age, my desires slowed enough that it was no longer necessary to find women to slake my lusts, and I was content to live that way, because even before sex had never been something I really enjoyed. It was like eating or breathing— just something I did and moved on from. 

But with Sami? Not only was I able to come more times in a night than I'd ever thought possible. Not only was the sex better than any I'd ever had. But I laughed harder and more than I ever had, especially during sex. Sami was desperate and needy and clingy, but he was also teasing and giggly and sweet. He would play as if he wanted to get away, and nearly wrestling while trying to kiss his plump lips, thrusting our cocks together as he shuddered and laughed beneath me, had become nearly my favorite part of our time together. Then hearing his soft little sighs as I finally entered him? Gods, it nearly undid me each and every time. 

Sami was every sexual fantasy I'd ever had personified, somehow, even though he was the opposite of what I'd always thought was my dream. And I thanked the gods every day that he'd had the patience to wait for me to accept a part of myself that I'd never expected to find. 

My embarrassment came to a head when Edon confronted me about a week after I had finally given into Sami's seductions. With no small amount of mumbling, blushing, and stuttering, he asked me if I wanted to move into one of the guard's cottages outside the keep, now that I had a partner who may one day be something more permanent. 

"The one near Dasan and Nibley's cottage is available, if you'd like. Right near the lake. Very pretty— and Sami will be right in the forest so I'm sure he'll be happy."

Gods, I hadn't been so embarrassed in a long time— well, at least not since Nibley had told me while laughing his ass off to wipe Sami's dried cum off my face. So I supposed it hadn't been that long. 

"Does everyone know we're..." I began, unable to complete the sentence. How would I, anyways? Did everyone know we were fucking? That we were a couple? That I thought I might be in love with him, and I wasn't sure if I'd ever felt this strongly about anyone in my life? 

How did you put that into words? A relationship that I just didn't know what to do with yet? That was so new, so pure and special, and yet still confused me for how strong the emotions were in such a short amount of time?

"Pretty much," Edon answered as his blush deepened even further. "We sort of knew it was just a matter of time, though you had us worried for a while, but then Sami got even more possessive and growly, so we figured...."

I nodded and shrugged, knowing I either needed to break things off with Sami completely, or accept that I was with a man now, and people would know. 

And the gods knew there was no chance I would get rid of my Sami.

But now, holding onto both of his upper arms, where he shook and refused to meet my eyes, I wondered if I was losing him. I'd always seen our relationship as Sami chasing me, Sami refusing to leave my side. But what if _he_ didn't want to be with _me_ anymore?

The heavy fear of abandonment began to course through me and my fists tightened around Sami so tightly, I had to be hurting him. The fear that Sami, young and inexperienced, would grow tired of me, like a shiny toy he had played with that had lost its shine, was strong, and heady with its sudden onslaught. 

I should have known. Should have seen it coming. Sami was young— barely in his twenties, for all I knew— and I was an old man compared to him. The bright and glittering excitement of chasing me, seducing me, winning me over, had worn off and now I was just some lovesick, pathetic old man who wanted to tie him down and keep him to myself. On top of his age and inexperience, Sami had spent most of his life alone and free in the wild. There was no way my tying him to me was appreciated by the man who had been so free and unfettered his entire life. Maybe he didn't like the idea the cottage represented: a commitment between us. 

"I like it, my Robert," he lied again, a smile on his face but his eyes dark with something. Something like reluctance and pain, something like sadness. 

"Sami, you know you're not a prisoner here, right? I mean—" I cut myself off, shaking my head. "That's not what I meant. Look, Sami, I don't want to hold you back from doing things you want to do. From freedom. You're young, and I don't want you to think you're stuck here for my sake. This place, it's just a home for you, to make your own. You don't have to feel like I'm trying to, ah, tie you down."

Sami's face froze a little, his eyes shuttering as he licked his lips. "You want me to go?" he asked, his voice small but otherwise stony and emotionless. 

I shook my head, sliding my hand down to his and squeezing his fingers, huffing a little at how badly I was handling this. 

"I want you to do what you want to do," I explained, trying to keep the words as succinct as I could, shrugging and pulling away a little to give him air and space to think. "I don't want you to be unhappy, and I can tell that this cottage, for whatever reason, is doing that. Can you talk to me? Tell me what you're feeling?"

He kept his eyes away from me, wide and wet, but no tears fell, and my heart clenched as I reached up with both hands, palming his face between them, and forced his eyes up to mine. 

"I love you, Sami," I whispered, not sure if I really wanted him to hear me or not, feeling as if I was ripping my heart out with a dull dagger and offering it up to certain death. "I'm sorry... I just, I need you to know. Whatever you're feeling, whatever is making you hurt, let me help you. You've been so patient with me, waited for me, convinced me to let myself love you. And now I do, and you're pulling away. Just... just help me understand. Please, Sami. Whatever it is, it's ok, and we can figure—" 

I broke off, unable to continue, my voice cracking and breaking off. I'd never been an emotional man, and yet this mere boy had me twisted in knots, my heart slamming against my ribs as if it wanted to escape its prison of my body. 

"I love you," I finished lamely, closing my eyes against the threat of the tears that wanted to break free. 

Sami dug his face against my chest and began to shake in my arms, his breaths coming in harsh, and I frowned, staring down at the top of his head with confusion. He couldn't be... laughing? 

No, he wasn't cruel like that, to laugh at my pathetic love for him. But what...

"Robert," he moaned, rubbing his face against my chest and tightening his arms around me, as if to hide himself from me. "I love you, my mate."

I froze as my stomach began to heat where his face was plastered, and I realized Sami was crying. Sobbing heavily against my tunic. 

_What the fuck_.

"Sami?" I whispered, nudging him to try to get him to lift his head but failing. He only held me tighter, refusing to look up at me. "Sami, if you love me, why are you upset? You can come and go from the cottage, if that's what you need? Do you need that, freedom? Sami, I'll do anything, be anything. What do you need, so that you'll stay with me?"

"I want to stay," he gasped between sobs, and my confusion and annoyance grew. I gripped his arms and pushed him away, almost growling when I saw the heartbreak and anguish in his gorgeous, tear-stained eyes. "I want to be with you always, mate."

"Then _why_?" I begged. "Why are you so upset, if you want to stay? What happened, Sami? Did I do something?"

"You want me to go."

"I fucking _do not_ want you to go. I told you that. I love you, Sami. I... why..." I broke off, shaking my head, emotion clogging my throat. Gods, I was acting like a weeping idiot. What the hell was it with this man that just... undid me?

"You don't want me here. You're embarrassed of me, because I'm like an animal," Sami said quietly, his hands twitching, as if he wanted to reach out to me, but he held back. 

"Who the _fuck_ told you that?" 

"No... no one," he answered, shaking his head and finally letting one of his hands come up to rest against my own on his arm. "You're gonna move me out to this cabin, so I won't embarrass you in front of the other humans."

"Sami," I intoned, shocked at his misunderstanding that was quite literally the opposite of the truth. It was unlike him to be so self conscious and to have such low self-esteem. Though, I knew, that was probably my fault. Months of being rejected by me, having his advances pushed away, hearing my reasons as to why we couldn't be together, had put those thoughts in his head, and now it was my job to shove them out again. 

"Sami," I repeated, "Cabins are given to couples and families, to give them privacy and their own space. It's a good thing, Sami. I'm not hiding you away— I'm giving you a home to come back to. It's... it's a home for us. Something permanent; not like the room in the keep I lived in before."

"You told me you wanted me to leave," Sami pouted, his body moving towards me inch-by-inch, as if he couldn't help himself. As if drawn by a line between us I couldn't see. 

I scoffed at his words and rolled my eyes. "You seemed upset by the cottage, Sami, and I knew you lived most of your life in the wild, free. I didn't want to hold you back, and I thought you weren't happy with me, and that you were, I don't know, wanting more. I had no idea you were hurt and thinking I didn't want you. I don't want you to leave, Sami, but I won't imprison you. I want you to do what you want to do. That was what I said. If that means you leaving, you'll take my heart with you, but I won't tie you down if it means you're unhappy."

"I was alone my entire life, Robert," Sami said, finally moving fully into my arms and tucking himself up against my chest. I lifted him up, my fingers gripping his thighs and ass, and he wrapped his legs around my waist. His breaths evened out as he dug his tear-stained face into my neck. "Not free. I'm free now, here with you."

I gripped his small body against mine, my chest aching as I realized he was agreeing to stay. He was mine. He wasn't leaving me. 

"Don't you ever fucking try to leave again, then," I hissed against his messy nest of hair. "You want to go away into the forest, fine, let your beast run free. But you fucking come back to me, do you understand me?"

Sami's nod against my chest and the tightening of his arms around me was the only answer I needed before I pushed him back and stared into his eyes. His cock was rapidly hardening against my stomach, making me want to roll my eyes. Gods, he was insatiable. But I knew that my words weren't enough. He had to know. He had to see that I was over my initial fears and confusions. I was far too old to not grab onto this man with both hands, wrap myself around him, and never let go, now that I knew what he was to me. Accepted what I was to him. 

What he had known all along. 

"C'mon, mate," I said, pushing him back so he stood on his feet, looking at me confusedly. "There's something we need to do before we christen the cottage."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Look at Robert, being all mature, communicating clearly, and being all good at relationships and stuff.*****


	25. To Our Friends

SAMI— 

For a brief, few minutes, I'd thought my mate didn't want me. I'd thought he wanted his freedom. He wanted out of this relationship I had dragged him into. So of course I would let him go. When your mate denies you, even after you've done everything you could to show them you could provide and care for them, you accepted it and you spent your life protecting them from afar.

So that's what I would do, I'd told myself.

But then he'd said those pretty words, the ones that had my chest tight and my eyes hot. The ones that had me wanting to climb up into his arms again and not let him put me down. That made me want to claim him, finally, wholly as my own. Put my mark on him, in him, as much as he'd let me. 

He just laughed when I tried to jump into his arms again, his hand in mine making me frustrated that he wouldn't let anything else touch. I needed his skin, I needed his heat, I needed his body and his tongue and his sweat and his cum and I needed it _now_.

"Calm down, Sami. We're real close, just through here," he said, pointing out a copse of willows to the back of our den.

 _Our den. My mate gave me a den— a_ home. I'd never had one before, even when Ma and Pa were alive. They'd lived in the shared rooms with the other slaves, not a den of their own. And in the wild, I'd had to keep moving, from place to place, nothing permanent, not a den I could be safe in and never have to sleep half-awake for fear of predators. 

My mate had given me a den of my own— to share with him. 

I wanted to crow. I wanted to hoot and holler and claim and bite and fuck. I wanted my Robert beneath me, to show him my gratitude that not only had he given me a den, pretty and white with little windows and a porch and the lake just beside it, but he'd been patient when I'd misunderstood what the den meant. He'd talked me through it, instead of letting me think I was shameful and that he didn't really want me. 

When we passed the willow trees, I realized we were only a yard from Nibley and Dasan's cottage, and I smiled. My mate was near his friends— he could visit them anytime he wanted, and we could have dinner together and they could come see the den my mate got just for me. 

Without pausing, my mate pushed through the door into the cottage, dragging me behind him. The two men inside looked up at our entrance, and I felt my ears heating as they glanced from Robert, to me, to our clasped hands, then back to Robert.

"Yeah, come right in, Robbie," Dasan drawled, his eyes sparking with amusement. "No need to knock or anything. Gods, you're going to be a terrible neighbor, ain't you?"

"Shut it, Dassie," Robert bit out, and I had to hide my smile against his stomach. My Robert only liked his name, and hated when people shortened it. I was happy to only call him Robert. It was a good name, a strong name, a name that he could be proud of. Like I was with my own, given to me by my mate himself. "I need to tell you both something. Well, we need to tell you something."

Dasan opened his mouth to reply, probably to joke, but Nibley held his hand up and stopped Dasan before he could make a sound. 

"Go ahead, Robert," Nibley said with a smile at me. 

They knew. They already knew, but my mate had something he wanted to prove to me. He wanted to show me, with what he did, rather than just telling me he wasn't ashamed of me. So he went to the two people who meant the most to him— except for me, of course— and was going to tell them that I was his. That he was mine. That finally, _finally_ , we were right and proper mates. 

Robert swallowed hard and then, all at once, like he had to push it out with his breaths, he told them about me and him and he made me want to cry again. 

"Sami and I have been having sex for over a week. The first time— well, you know about that." He blushed and stammered, and I could tell both Dasan and Nibley were fighting laughter, but they held it back for their friend, and I was grateful. He was so brave, my mate, and I was very proud of him. "I'm his mate, and I love him, and we're moving into the cottage right over there, and we're in a relationship, and someday I'm hoping to marry him. But maybe not too soon, because we only just started courting, and—" 

"— Breathe, Robert," Nibley said, cutting into Robert's words. I almost growled at the man, because my mate's words were making me smile and they were so pretty. I didn't want him to stop. 

_What is_ marry, _though_? I wondered, deciding to ask my mate later. One way or the other, I would do it, if my mate wanted to. I hoped it was something that had me on my back with my mate tasting me, or on my knees with my mate behind me, or—

"You know we already knew, right?" Dasan asked with a chuckle. Robert nodded and then shook his head, like a dog shaking off fleas. 

"I know. But Sami, he needed to see me— to see that I'm serious."

I tugged on my mate's sweaty hand and he faced me with a grimace. His face was so red he looked like a fruit, but I held back my own amusement because I was so proud. So proud of my big, serious, loving mate. So proud that he wasn't ashamed of me, and proud that he was mine. Mine forever and ever. 

"I love you, mate. Thank you for loving me and for giving me such a pretty den."

Dasan and Nibley broke out into quiet chuckles and stupid little whiny " _aaw_ " noises, but I ignored them, only looking up at my mate as he smiled down at me, then leaned down and kissed me, gentle and light. I wanted more— I wanted tongue and heat and skin, sweat and _cum_ and _orgasm_ and bites and sucks and _yes_ , mate, _yes_ , but I'd settle for this for now. 

Dasan made a whistling noise, followed by Nibley making strange, _whoot_ noises, and Robert yanked away, glared the two men down, then grabbed my hand up and dragged me out of the cottage, the door dropping closed with a slam behind us. 

ROBERT—

Sami explored the cottage for only a few minutes, walking through the front room, the small kitchen with its various shelves, the windows all around, letting in the morning and the evening sun, and then he was stalking back to the bedroom and I was trailing bemusedly behind him. He looked at the bed— a big four poster that was far too big for the room, but which I'd bought with him in mind, knowing he'd love the big space to stretch out in— sniffed the air, then he was looking up at me with determination. 

"Let me mate you," he said, firmly, without hesitation or embarrassment. His words had me blushing and flinching at the same time. I had known it was coming the moment I gave in that first time. Whenever I fucked him, he got nearly violent in his pleasure, grabbing me, holding me to him, his teeth sometimes leaving bruises all up and down my neck and chest. He also occasionally would brush his fingers over my hole, his eyes studying me, as if watching for my reaction. As if seeing how far he could push me before I didn't allow his touch. 

I'd allowed them all, and the way my anus clenched in anticipation and my balls drew up when he fingered my hole, I knew I would enjoy him being the first— and only— to take me in that way. 

"Yeah, Sami," I said with as big of a smile as I could muster. I knew it was a pathetic excuse for a smile, more a grimace, but it was all I had in me as I gave him the last bit of me I had to give to someone. The last piece of me he was demanding I trust him with. "Yeah, I'd like that."

Sami smirked as he moved towards me, gripping my hands in both of his, and stared up at me. "I'm gonna mark you as mine, Robert. Gonna make you feel so good."

"Yeah, Sami," I agreed again, dropping a hesitant, smiling kiss to his lips. "Yeah, I'm nervous, though. You have to go slow for me, ok?"

"Yes, mate," he replied, pulling me towards the bed we'd yet to make love on. "I'll open your body for my knot, don't worry. I won't hurt you, my Robert."

I froze, turning back to Sami with a frown. "Your knot?" I asked with a frown. 

Sami chuckled and shoved at my chest, knocking me back against the bed. I fell with a quick exhale of breath and Sami fluidly moved in between my spread knees, his eyes darkened with lust as he stared down at me. He lifted the hem of his shirt from his waist and jerked his shirt off, throwing it to the ground, his leggings following immediately after. The sight of his long, thick prick made me swallow and look away. I was pretty sure I was blushing, but I refused to acknowledge that a man could make me blush like an adolescent. 

I lifted my hands up, tracing the lines of Sami's bony hips as he moved back in between my legs. He bent down, though with his height he barely had to at all, and pressed his lips to mine. The kiss was tenderness, and it was patience, and it was... gods above, it was everything I'd never known I could want. Sami was everything I never could have dreamed up, even in my wildest fantasies. He was pure and honest, and so sweet he made me smile just watching his head bob and his big ears shake as he laughed. He was my world, and though that should have scared me, and used to, had held me back so long, I was now only grateful he'd been given to me, and I to him. 

Our kiss deepened as Sami yanked my shirt and tunic over my head in one movement, then unlaced my trousers. I lifted my ass to give him room to pull them down my leg, leaning back on my elbows to give myself leverage. He crouched down, and soon my trousers, tangled in both of my boots, were being thrown behind his back. He lifted himself up and threw his leg over my hip and straddled me, his naked skin rubbing against mine. Heat infused my bones, making me groan as Sami's cock slipped against mine, hardening me more than I'd even been before. 

"Robert, I'm gonna make you mine, mark you up inside. You want that, mate?"

"Yeah, Sami," I said again, and I'd say it as many times as he needed me to. As many times as he needed to hear that I wanted him just as much as he did me. 

"Good," he whispered with a snarl against my lips as his hips began to undulate against me. "'Cause you're mine now, mate, and I'm gonna make sure your body knows it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Dasan and Nibley are ridiculous 😂😂*****


	26. Claimed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***** *blushes heavily and runs away* *****

SAMI—

I had to taste my Robert completely. I had to know what he felt like. I had to feel my mate's body caressing mine, taking me deep into his depths, and claim him as my own, now and forever. I needed it, now more than ever, because my mate was finally, _finally_ , mine. 

I pushed my mate onto his back, never taking my lips from his. We scooted back awkwardly until my mate was fully on the big bed, prone beneath me, and I hovered above him, straddling his chest. 

"Wait, Sami," Robert gasped, his hands on my hips pushing me back. I growled, but obeyed my mate, lifting my head up and glaring down at him, my fangs bared even though I didn't mean them to be. "What did you mean by knot?"

"I'm gonna put my penis inside you, Robert, and I'm gonna make your ass feel so good, and when I come, my knot's gonna swell and lock us together. I can only knot my true mate, my Robert. Only you."

Robert made a strange noise, his lips twisting with an expression I don't think I'd seen on his face before. It was something like amusement, but with some small bit of something bad. Like fear maybe. Or annoyance. 

"Karma's a fickle bitch," he grumbled, his hands on my hips tightening a little. 

"You don't want my knot, Robert?" I asked, trying to make sure my mate didn't see my disappointment or sadness that he didn't want my claim. 

"Ah, well," my mate said, looking away with a sigh. "I do, I think, maybe."

I raised my brows, urging my mate to continue, and he snorted. 

"I made fun of Lhiam and Edon once when Tate and I walked in and they were stuck together. So this is, I don't know, karma getting back at me for embarrassing them."

I smirked and rolled my eyes. "My knot was made only for you, my mate. It'll feel real good, you'll see. It's not a bad thing."

Robert laughed in something like disbelief and shook his head, then reached up and cupped my cheeks with both of his big hands. "I guess we'll see, won't we? G'on, get the oil. It's on the table, just there."

I looked over at what my mate was gesturing to and smiled, showing my mate my teeth as I reached over and dragged the little bottle of oils over to us and set it by my mate's naked skin. 

I leaned down, pressing little kisses to my mate's face. His lips, his cheeks, his forehead, then his ears and down his neck. My mate was still, but breathing heavier with each kiss. His cock, gone a little soft at our conversation about my knot, rose up hard and proud, eager for me. 

I crawled down, licking the tip of Robert's cock, then pushed his legs up so I had access to his hole. It was dark skinned and line, rimmed with hair. I licked my lips and moved forward, but my mate groaned and his legs jerked in my grip, so I looked up at him. 

My mate's face and neck were blood red, his eyes wide, peeking out from between his spread fingers, his big hands held up in front of his face as if to hide himself. 

"Oh gods," he groaned, chuckling in a dark, manic kind of way. "This is... Gods, Sami, this is the most embarrassing position I could possibly be in."

I studied him, my eyes raking across his big, thick body, all laid out and pretty for me. He was propped up on pillows, and I held his legs up and away from his body, dangling above my head, above his stomach. His ass was open and bared to me, his hard prick leaking against his belly. I looked down his body, then back up to meet his eyes and shook my head. 

"You're very pretty, Robert. Why are you embarrassed? It's just me. Just your Sami. I promise I won't laugh at you."

"Can I..." My Robert began, then shook his head and laughed in that same manic sort of way. "Can I turn around, on my stomach? I feel like that will be a lot less, ah, awkward."

"I want'a see your face, Robert," I pouted, shaking my head and then lowering it to my mate's ass again. "Now hush. I wanna taste you. Been wantin' to taste you for a long time."

My mate opened his mouth, probably to argue with me again, the stubborn git, but then my tongue touched his hole and instead he made a gurgling kind of strangled noise and I chuckled against his skin. I licked my mate's hole, my fingers digging into his thighs to keep him open for me, then licked up from his hole, along his sensitive taint, and laved my tongue against his balls. I licked one, pulling it into my mouth and sucking gently, letting my tongue press and prod against the tight skin. I let it fall from my mouth, soaked and swollen as my mate cursed. 

"Fucking hell, Sami," Robert groaned and I smiled against his thigh as I nipped at the sensitive skin there, just at the junction between groin and leg, then moved back to his one neglected ball and pulled it into my mouth too. 

I sucked on his balls for a few minutes, then moved back down, kissing and sucking against his perineum. I reached his hole and began to lave it with my tongue, circling it over and over, swiping the flat part of my tongue against it, then when it was wet enough, I dipped just the tip inside my mate's hole. I looked up, meeting Robert's surprised, confused, pleasure-glazed eyes and smirked. 

"Feels good, mate?" I asked, and he nodded absentmindedly. 

"It's... it's strange, different, but... good different, I think."

I licked his leg, since I couldn't help it— it was quivering just inches from my mouth— then dove back in and began to press into my mate's ass as deep as my tongue could reach. 

"Hold your legs open for me, mate," I told him, only letting go once I felt the weight of his legs lessen against my fingers. Then I dug my face against his ass, using my fingers to pry his hole open so I could reach deeper with my tongue. My mate began to pant and make small, quiet, desperate noises. 

"Fuck, Sami, _fuck_ ," my mate muttered mindlessly as he began to lift his hips, thrusting his ass against my face. His hard cock bobbed and twitched against his stomach, precum making a small pool against his belly. 

I slowly pressed my first finger inside of Robert, looking up to watch his face. My mate's eyes were closed, his head tilted up to the ceiling, his brow furrowed. I twisted my finger, searching out my mate's spot inside him, and he jerked and his lips thinned. 

"Does it hurt, mate?"

"No," he breathed, shaking his head but not opening his eyes. His face was strained, his brows drawn, his teeth clenched. He for sure _looked_ like he was in pain. 

"I can stop, my Robert. I don't have to—"

"— Don't stop," he growled, finally opening his eyes and fixing an annoyed, frustrated glare on me. "Don't stop, Sami. I want this too, I'm just..."

"Talk to me, mate," I whispered, pressing little, gentle kisses to my mate's cock as I began to move my finger in and out of him, getting him used to the stretch before I added another. 

"Sami, I don't want to talk about—"

I stopped the movement of my finger and my mate groaned and slammed his head back against the wooden board at the head of the bed with frustration. 

"It's stupid, Sami," he said with lots of annoyance. 

"Then tell me the stupid thing."

"Only weak men let other men fuck their ass," he pushed out, his words sounding clipped and close together, all in one breath. "And especially enjoy it."

"You think I'm weak?"

"You're the strongest man I know," he replied with a sad little smile. "Sami, it's not—"

"— You think Dasan and Nibley, Prince Lhiam? You think they're weak?"

"No, of course not. Sami, I don't think—"

"— It takes strength to be vulnerable, my Robert," I whispered, kissing my mate's knee and moving up his body to his lips. I kissed him gently, knowing my mate was fighting his own inner battle and there was nothing I could really do to help him except be patient. He himself had to get rid of the voices in his head that were telling him his pleasure and his love were wrong. 

"I think," I said against his lips when I pulled away, opening my eyes to stare into Robert's. "That only a man wholly comfortable with himself and his body would let another person inside it. Only someone truly strong would leave themselves vulnerable in another's arms."

My mate studied my face, his legs coming up around my waist, holding me tight to him, his hands coming up to cup my cheeks, and then he smiled and shook his head. 

"And just like that," he grumbled, faking a pout as he pushed up to kiss me, "You pushed through forty years of others' opinions and hatred. Thank you, Sami."

"So I can fuck your ass now?" I asked, my hips jerking against my mate's belly. Robert barked out a laugh and shook his head with a funny kind of smile. 

"Have at me, Sami," he said, lifting his hands above his head, limp against the bed, leaving himself completely open and pliant beneath me. I growled at the submission and licked his cheek, drawing another chuckle from deep within my mate's chest. Then I dipped lower, past the thick, dark hair on my mate's chest and belly, and back down to his hole. 

ROBERT—

Sami took my words to heart, let me fucking tell you.

He had at me. 

His lips, tongue, teeth, fingers, nails skin breath suction oh gods, he was everywhere. He moved back to my ass quickly, yanked my legs up, pushing them into my hands to hold up and apart for him, and he went. to. fucking. town. 

It wasn't even minutes before he had three fingers lodged in my ass, the stretch uncomfortable but also throbbing and aching in a way that had me pushing towards him rather than away. 

I tried to keep my noises quiet, embarrassed that all I wanted to do was chant his name, over and over, pushing him to lick me more, suck my cock while his fingers played in my ass. I pressed one hand to my mouth when Sami's tongue and teeth joined his three fingers in my ass, leaving my left leg to rest against his thin but sturdy shoulder because I couldn't not cover my mouth or the embarrassing sounds that pushed up my belly and through my throat would be loud and clear. 

"Sami, please," I begged, my voice muffled through the prison of my fingers, not even sure what I wanted. "Please, I'm ready. Just... Sami, just fuck me already, please."

Sami chuckled against my taint as he began to work his lips and tongue, teeth and breath back up my body. 

"Whatever you desire, my mate", Sami chuckled and I rolled my eyes. But then the tip of his cock was pressing against my hole and I tensed up almost violently. 

"Fuck, sorry, Sami," I grumbled with annoyance, rolling my eyes as I tried to calm my racing heart and tense limbs. He'd spent a good half hour calming me down, relaxing my body, getting me ready, and now my fool body was panicking without my say so. 

"That's ok, Robert," Sami whispered, his smiling mouth moving over mine, then to my nose, then my forehead as he ran his hands up and down my arms in a soothing gesture. I held onto my thighs with a nearly painful grip, staring up at the ceiling above Sami's head and just trying to breathe. "Take your time. Relax. I'm here. I'll wait until your body is ready for mine, mate."

I breathed in, then out again, concentrating on relaxing my muscles, one at a time, until I was as pliant as I was ever going to get beneath my mate. 

"Ok, Sami, I'm good now. Just go slow, ok?"

"Yes, mate," Sami whispered, digging his face into my neck as he pressed himself inside me, slowly, gently, inch-by-inch. He was much thicker than I'd expected, longer too— I felt like he'd never end. Then, finally, he did, his hips flush with my ass, his little whimpers against my neck, his hot breath blowing against my ear making me shiver as my ass clenched and unclenched around the large cock inserted inside of me. 

"My Robert," Sami groaned, nipping at my neck, then licking at the stinging mark. "You feel so good. So good, mate. I feel... my cat likes this very much, my Robert. We want... I want... I wanna mark you deep inside, mate. Can I? Please, let me show your body that you're mine."

"Do it," I whispered, and Sami grunted and whined against me, his entire body shaking against mine. "Make love to me like your whole being wants to, Sami. I can take it."

Sami grunted out an amused smirk, then his eyes were on mine as he lifted himself above me. 

"I'm stronger than I look, my Robert. You sure you can take it?"

I laughed and shook my head at the way I was lying, prone beneath another man, his cock lodged in my ass, and yet somehow I could laugh and joke about sex with him. 

What a strange place I'd found myself in my life. 

I let my hands fall above my head, feigning as much as I could an innocent, virginal look, and smirked. "Give it to me, Sami. All you've got. I was made for you, remember?"

Sami's reaction was instantaneous. His entire body shuddered, his cock swelled noticeably in my ass, and he barked out a strained laugh mixed with a deep moan. 

He growled something indecipherable, his eyes flashing with heat, and then he did what I asked. He gave me everything he had. Everything he'd been holding back from me for months. 

He _was_ much stronger than I'd thought. And I fucking enjoyed every second of it.


	27. Because I Love You

SAMI—

My Robert grabbed the wooden board at the head of the bed with sweat-soaked fingers, his eyes clenched shut as his mouth opened in a wide, pleasured, silent scream. I thrust my lube-slick cock into his ass, hard and without pause, over and over again until he was chanting my name with each press of my prick inside his tight heat. 

I lifted my mate's thighs, setting them to rest so his legs dangled over my shoulders, and the new position must'a hit that fun spot inside of him, because my mate just about shot off the bed. His hips rose and his eyes jerked wide, his cock spitting out a few drops of precum onto his clenched belly. 

"Did I hit your spot, mate?" I panted, my fangs dropping down in my mouth, wanting nothing more than to bite and claim and taste and mine mine mine. 

"Fuck, yes, you're right on it, Sami. Don't move, ok? Feels... gods, it feels really good. So good."

I smirked and pressed into my mate, hard, then again, pushing him up the bed with the force of my thrusts, until his neck was bent against the wooden board at the head of the bed, and he was pushing against it with his palms just to keep his head from hitting it over and over. 

I yanked my mate back, grinding up against his taint, my belly rubbing against his balls and drawing a long, drawn-out groan from him. I reached down, down to where we were joined, and as my thrusts never faltered, I gently pressed right up against that spot I knew would drive him wild, just below my mate's swollen, wet balls. 

"Sami!" my mate cried, shaking his head as his back arched and I took the full weight of my big mate's body as he thrust up, using his legs against my shoulders as leverage. "Oh my gods, do that again!"

I chuckled, pushing my mate back down as much as I could, then repeated the move, gently pressing and massaging the small bit of skin between my mate's balls and where we were joined at his ass. 

"Feels good, huh?" I whispered, wetting my lips as my throat went dry at the sight of my pretty mate, all wrecked and panting and sweating and needy. For me. Just for me. 

"Yeah, Sami," Robert breathed, a funny little blissful smile on his face as he opened his eyes and looked down at me. "You know my body so well."

"It's mine to pleasure and love," I said with a pout. "Of course I know it."

ROBERT—

I chuckled at Sami's words, then grunted as his thrusts grew harsher, his cock moving in and out of my body with an increasing speed I couldn't even keep up with. I could only hang onto the headboard and try not to be pushed off the edge of the world. My entire being was lit up, sparks of light dancing across my vision every time Sami's cock pressed past that small, swollen bundle of nerves in my ass. I was a mess of garbled words and unfinished sentences as I began to reach my peak without even a finger on my prick. 

Before long, Sami's grunts began to grow more and more animalistic. His ears pointed, fur growing at the tips, and he hissed, his teeth a mass of sharp canines in a mouth gone just a little long. His fingers hooked into claws at my thighs, holding me wide open for his nearly violent movements. 

"Robert?" he whispered, his swirling, multi-colored eyes locking on mine as his hips began to jerk and his thrusts became erratic. His hands scrabbled at my skin, making me hiss as his claws drew long scrapes down my thighs in his urgency and pleasure. "Gonna come now, Robert, ok? Can I come, pretty mate? Knot your pretty—"

"—Fucking hell, Sami," I groaned, closing my eyes and bracing myself agaisnt the headboard as his mouth dripped filth that made me, a hardened war veteran, feel like covering my face with my hands and blushing like a teenager. "Yeah, just do it. You don't need to sit and talk about it so much, all the time."

I sounded like a petulant child, but I didn't care. His words, the desperation in them, unnerved me. Made me feel even more vulnerable than my lying with my legs spread, his cock in my ass, pliant beneath him. 

"I wanna make sure," he bit out, his eyes dancing with amusement even as his claws bit painfully into the soft insides of my thighs as he held my legs open for himself. "That you're still sayin' yes. I always wanna hear you say yes so I make sure you're always still mine."

My chest tightened and I bit my lip, reaching up to grab the side of Sami's neck and pull him down. With our bottom halves still connected, he could only reach my mouth if I bent up nearly in half, but we managed it, and I slammed my mouth to his in a sloppy, messy, wet kiss filled with lots of teeth and spit. 

I pulled away only when I couldn't breathe anymore. Then, holding his face to me with my hand on the back of his neck, I whispered one word right up against his lips. One word that had him crying out and coming inside me with a hot jet of liquid I could feel like an inner branding. 

"Yes," I breathed. 

Sami cried out, his eyes slamming closed as he arched his back and ground his prick inside my hole. I grunted, a little pain, a little pleasure, a lot of heat. And then he began to swell and my brain shorted out. 

I could feel his cock get noticeably larger, his thrusts against me becoming jerky, short presses until, after a moment, he couldn't move at all. His mouth hung open in a pained grimace of ecstasy, and his eyes fluttered as his body shook once, twice, again, for over a minute before I first began to feel the... I wasn't even sure what to call them. 

His cock swollen to nearly twice its original size, small protrusions began to press up against the sensitized, swollen insides of my ass. I cried out as one seemed to lodge itself right directly against my prostate and my cock bounced uselessly against my stomach, a steady stream of precum dripping down to pool at my belly. 

"Sami!" I hissed, as he continued to shake and shudder above me, his face pressed against my thigh now, still leaning up against his shoulder. "Sami, gods, I gotta come. I'm gonna... gonna die if I don't come."

Sami's eyes opened and he smiled down at me, blissfully and with wet, hot eyes. And then his fingers moved from my thigh to my cock. He gripped me, stroking only a handful of times before I spasmed and came against his fingers. I yanked one of the pillows out from beneath my head and slammed it against my face, biting it to keep my screams from being heard for miles around as my body turned itself inside out. All to please the little slip of a man who now panted against my chest, his body shaking, rising and falling with his labored breaths. 

Sami pulled the pillow off of my face when I finished screaming, his pointy chin resting on my chest as he looked up at me. Sweat coated both of our bodies. I let my legs drop down off of his shoulders, spread and wanton against the bed, but I cared not. I could barely breathe and think at the same time in that moment, much less worry about how I looked, spread out and slutty beneath the man who had just played my body like a broken instrument. 

I squirmed but froze with a wince as his cock tugged against my rim. Sami frowned, his hands coming up to lace his fingers through mine, holding me steady. 

"I think it may be awhile before my knot goes down, mate. Don't move, ok? I don't want'a hurt you."

I chuckled and raised my brow, looking pointed at the bright red scratch marks on my legs. I didn't even mention the bite marks up and down my chest, on my neck, and down at my belly and groin. 

"Yeah?" I teased. 

Sami followed my gaze, then smirked and looked back up at me. "Those are love marks."

"Yeah? They look like scratches to me."

"They're your Sami's scratches, though, so they're love marks."

"Ah, I get it," I said with a laugh. "As long as it's you, you can mark up my body."

"You don't like it?" he asked, and there was something there. He wasn't insecure. He wasn't upset. He was... testing? Maybe a little, I wasn't sure, but maybe jealous?

I studied the little scratches on my legs and was almost annoyed to feel the rush of pride fill my chest at the visible marks of Sami's claim on me. After decades alone, I found someone who cared about me so much, loved me so deeply, he could barely contain himself when he was able to physically consummate that love. 

It was a heady, almost powerful feeling, realizing the depths of Sami's devotion and love. His obsession and passion. 

"Yeah, you damn brat." I chuckled with rolled eyes as I wrapped my arms and legs around him, holding him safe and tight in my arms until he was able to pull away. "You know I like them. The gods only know why, but I love 'em."

"Because you love me," he said, his tone smug as he settled himself against my stomach. 

"Yeah," I replied quietly, my eyes shutting as I felt Sami's cock let out another spurt of come, and my own body reacted with an aftershock of pleasure that danced up my spine. "Yeah, Sami. Because I love you."


	28. Keliant

SAMI—

 _My mate wants me!_ I wanted to shout it from the tops of the trees, to tell anyone within hearing distance, random strangers I passed, that stupid wolf with his annoyingly kind eyes. I wanted to tell everyone that _Robert was mine_.

He wasn't embarrassed of me, and he wanted me. He had given me a home, and I had almost lost it. I had almost walked away from my mate, who was only trying to build me a den and provide for me, like a good mate should. And I didn't understand, because humans were confusing and they had to live in a separate place if they had a mate, and no one told me that. No one told me mates live in a different place from people who didn't have mates, and I almost lost my Robert because I didn't understand. 

I spent the whole of the next few days practically floating as I walked, sore and sated and oh, so happy, but I was slammed back to the dirt when my mate came to find me when the sun was highest in the sky when we'd only been in our new den for less than a full week's time. 

When Robert found me, I was in the stables with Mistress Silvia, where she was teaching me about how to ensure Honeysuckle and Horse stayed healthy and strong post-birth. How to measure Horse's growth and check her teeth and tongue and even her manure for sickness. 

"Sami!" Robert called. I turned, excited and ready to tell Robert all about the babies that would be born to the dogs in the kennels within the fortnight. We'd just got done visiting them, so my excitement was still high about the big, pregnant bitches, but the look on his face had me freezing. Behind my mate, men began to pour into the stables, pulling out their tack and saddles and beginning to lead their horses from their stalls

Each of the men wore armor and had swords and bows and arrows tied to their bodies, and even more tied to the saddles of the horses. 

My Robert wore armor. My Robert was covered in various battle weapons. My Robert looked grim and his eyes were just a little dark. Very serious and stern.

My Robert wore armor. 

Gods, no, my Robert _wore armor._

Armor like men donned when they went to battle. Like they wore when they were going to fight and bleed and maybe die. 

_Ravin, no_ , I begged silently. 

"There's been some kind of violent uprising in Keliant, to our south. Emperor Riece has asked Prince Lhiam to send men to aid the governor there, as we're the closest military force."

"Will it be dangerous, mate?" I asked, terror climbing up my throat as I grabbed my mate's hand. Behind him, I saw Prince Lhiam saddling his own horse with a very distressed wolf by his side. If he'd had his tail shifted, it would have been tucked between his legs. Captains Nibley and Dasan also saddled their huge war stallions, and their presence with my mate was a small comfort. I had seen the fearsome men fight once before, and knew them to be valiant and terrifying foes for those whom they battled. I was sure my mate was the same. I was proud of the stories Dasan and Nibley had told me of my Robert's battles, but not now. Not now that he was my mate and I needed him. I needed him, and he couldn't leave me. He _couldn't._

"We don't have a lot of information, Sami," Robert replied, motioning for me to follow as he walked to his own stallion, saddling him up as he spoke to me. "We hope it will be an easy negotiation with the commoners who have risen up, but only one person has managed to get out, and his reports were unreliable."

"Why unreliable?"

"He was hysterical, said a spirit witch and his giant black cat familiar were killing everyone with noble blood in the castle," Prince Lhiam cut in, the wolf clinging to his arm with wide, wet eyes. "But spirit witches have been extinct for centuries, at least in this part of the world. I'm sure it's just some magician with tricks, or terror making the man see things, but we're going in nearly blind."

"Let me go with you," I pleaded, and Robert stiffened, his eyes flashing with impatient anger. He grabbed my arm and dragged me away, towards the door to the tack room. 

"Sami, it would be immensely unprofessional of me to bring my, ah, my man with me. I'll be fine, I'll be safe, and this is my job. Look, Edon is staying too, to look after his and Lhiam's son and watch over the castle. Why don't you stay with him, and we'll be back before you even realize we're gone?"

"Why can't I—"

"— Sami," my mate cut in, his hands tightening around my upper arms almost painfully. "Stay here. This is my job. Let me do my job, and you do yours. It's not appropriate or right for you to come with me. You're not a soldier; you're a civilian. Stay here."

His kiss was firm but sweet, and I whimpered against his mouth until he let me go, and then he and the other men— around 50 total— were gone, and I was left in the dust of their horses' hooves. 

ROBERT—

We reached Keliant within two hours. It was technically in Ipsin, but it was on the border between Ipsin and Teren, and closer to Teren Keep than Ipsin Keep, which was why the Emperor sent for Lhiam's men rather than Prince Edgar's. Probably also because Edgar's forces had suffered as much as his people had in these last few years. Word of his aging mind and lack of heir had been the talk of the rumor mills for the last year or so as he retreated more and more into his home and left his kingdom to rot. Dasan, Nibley, and I had a bet going how much longer the Emperor would allow the prince to rule his kingdom before he took it and passed it to someone younger and saner. 

We smelled the bodies before we spotted them, blowing in a morbid kind of dance from the trees, lining the path to Keliant Castle's gate. The wall around the castle had fallen into rubble as if from some kind of explosion, and the scent of blood and rot was thick in the air. 

"Oh gods," Prince Lhiam muttered from just in front of me. I looked to what had caught his gaze, and my entire body seized in horror and fear. There were bodies hung up from the trees, set up as if they were ushers pointing the way to a ball. They were hanging by their necks along the path, some with their intestines and other insides hanging out of their bodies, their hands clutching them as if to put them back inside their bellies. They had been blowing in the light wind just a moment before. Now, though, they were eerily, unnaturally still. 

Though I would have sworn they had hung limply only seconds before, their heads lolling on their chests or shoulders, each one now had their heads turned to stare us down. Agony lit in each of their eyes, but none spoke a word. 

"My gods," Nibley muttered, his eyes widening in horror as Dasan reached out and they gripped each other's hands, silently offering each other comfort. They hadn't even had to look at each other; the move had been smooth, practiced, as they quietly drew strength from the other. 

"They're still alive," Dasan finished for Nibley, just a bit of terror lacing his voice. 

There were at least a dozen men, all with chests rising and falling as if in labored breaths, mouths wide in screams of agony, bodies twisted in various forms of torture. All hanging by their swollen, sometimes broken, necks. All frozen in morbid, rictus horror. 

"They should be dead," I hissed, my entire body shaking as fear and dread settled on my shoulders like a blanket. An evil, horrible, vicious blanket. "How...?"

"Cut them down!" Prince Lhiam ordered, but just as he moved to dismount, Dasan yanked the prince's arm back and shook his head, then jerked it to the castle. Standing in the rubble of the castle's walls, an eerily, horribly familiar man stood, a black hood and cloak covering him from view. I couldn't even pinpoint how I recognized him, but there was something about just the way he stood that had familiar warning bells ringing in my mind. 

"Touch them and you'll join them," the man called, his voice gruff and filled with a darkness that made me flinch. 

Somehow, though I could barely see the man, with his voice I recognized him as the witch who worked for the slaver so many years ago. The one that warned me to send the girl-slave the opposite way to where he would lead his master. The witch who had practically oozed evil all those years ago now stood among the rubble of a town he had decimated, like a doomsday prophecy come to fruition. 

At his feet, sitting on its haunches and licking a bloody claw, was a panther with eyes that shone with a broken kind of hatred that sent shivers of dread down my spine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****Don't hate me too much for this cliffhanger 🙈🙈*****


	29. The Witch and the Shifter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****If you've read By the Light of the Moon, then you're welcome for this chapter 😘*****

ROBERT—

"That's a wild mage," I whispered, nodding when both Dasan and Nibley's eyes flicked to mine. "I don't know how I know, but that panther—"

"I feel it too," Lhiam cut in, nodding and latching onto the reins of his stallion in a white-knuckled grip. 

"Guess we should'a brought Sami or Edon, huh?" I joked lamely, and Lhiam huffed out an agreed chuff. 

"Is there anyone still alive in there? Any hostages?" Prince Lhiam called to the witch and the shifter, his voice firm but purposely calm. Not aggressive in tone or wording. 

"Most of the women and children were set free," the witch answered nonchalantly. 

"Most?" Lhiam asked, trepidation in his voice. 

" _All_ of the children. I'm not a _complete_ monster." The man's tone was familiar, calm, as if he were talking about the weather or teatime rather than the massacre of an entire town. "But some of the women had been very evil in their dealings with those they deemed lesser. I promised my mate vengeance, and that included some of those of the weaker sex."

"Is anyone alive within the walls of the castle?"

"Define _alive_ ," the witch called back, a smirk in his voice, and I felt a chill down my spine at what the women he had deemed worthy of his vengeance were now enduring. The panther at his feet stood, its tail flicking back and forth as it sniffed the air. 

Then the panther was gone, replaced by a man around Edon's age, maybe younger, his hair long and hanging lankly down his back in thick lumps of matted hair. His ribs protruded, his belly pressing nearly against his spine, and his body was covered in scars. His prick hung flaccid and tilted, and it took me a moment to realize why it looked crooked. 

He only had one testicle. 

The shifter made hand gestures, flowing out to us, then back in again, and the witch's brows rose as he yelled out what looked like some kind of... translation?

"You two," the witch called, his eyes flicking from me to Lhiam and back again. "You are the mates of wild mages. Where are your mates?"

"Our mates don't concern you," Lhiam called back. Then, "What do you want here? Why have you come? Why have you committed this massacre?"

"You are Prince Lhiam of Teren," the witch called, moving a few steps forward, followed closely by the shifter. The witch paused just long enough to rid himself of his thick cloak and throw it over the shifter's shoulders before he continued his graceful, haunting steps through the rubble. The gesture was almost sweet, caring, if it wasn't done in the midst of a ruined castle where evil hung in the air like a miasma. "I am Harkyn of Arcandi, spirit witch and mate to Asa of Teren. My little mate has been a sex slave of Governor Andyr since he was far too young. I'm neither a kind nor a merciful man, especially when it comes to what is _mine_."

"That isn't possible," Lhiam called back, his hand on his sword, his horse chittering nervously as the two men approached slowly, menacingly. The rubble beneath their feet seemed to rumble and shake with every step and I prayed it was only my imagination and fear making them seem more terrifying. "Slavery has been outlawed for nearly 18 years!"

The witch laughed, the sound grating and making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. 

"I assure you, he bears the mental and physical scars of his torment. See for yourself."

The witch waved his hand, and flashes of visions, like a grip of deja vu, made my body liquid and shaking as if there was an earthquake beneath me. 

Visions of whippings, rapes, years of servitude and torture. The broken mind of a wild mage not allowed to shift into his beastial form due to a magic binding collar around his neck. I couldn't even imagine what it would do to Sami to not be allowed to shift for even a day, much less most of his life. It was such a part of who he was, I knew it would change him, harm him, irrevocably. 

What would it have done to the poor young man who was even now watching us all with glazed, shattered eyes, to have his panther bound for _years_? The majority of his life?

"I'm sorry this befell your mate. You're correct that it was wrong, and justice would have been served on the governor. But vengeance is not justice and vengeance is the wrong way to go about—"

Something caught Lhiam's eyes, cutting off his words completely. He stared at one of the men who hung above the road, three down. The man was perhaps 50, with a fat belly that hung over a gold belt. Piss and shit ran down his leg, his insides were held in his limp arms, and his mouth moved as if he were silently begging for mercy. 

But mercy was something I _did not_ see in Lhiam's eyes. In fact, I had never seen Lhiam look so filled with merciless _rage_. And it was directed not at the witch, but at the man who hung, holding his intestines in his arms, his heart hanging out through his visible ribs, his neck crooked with the bone broken through the skin. The man looked as if something had exploded inside of him, ripping him apart but keeping him mostly intact by little bits. 

"Your highness?" Dasan asked, making Lhiam flinch and stare back at us, his eyes so distraught it was as if he was looking through us. 

"That's... that man— that's Edon's Mas— I bought Edon from that man. I _rescued_ Edon from that..."

Dasan's jaw clenched and Nibley flinched, and I immediately understood. None of us knew the details, but the abuse Edon had suffered at the hands of men before Lhiam had found him and freed him was known by a select few, and we knew he'd had a cruel man he called Master who had beaten and sold his body against his will, to other evil men, for years. 

The witch looked from Lhiam to the man, then back to Lhiam again before he broke out into nearly manic, heartless laughter. 

"What self-righteous bullshit were you spouting, about vengeance not being the right way, your highness?" he mocked. "You can't tell me you don't love the sight of that man hung up, in absolute agony, in retribution for what he did to your mate. You can't lie to me, and tell me you haven't looked back and wished you had done this after you found your mate— that you haven't spent every day wishing you hadn't let him go without punishment. Now here he is, hung up for your viewing pleasure. It's too bad your mate isn't here to see it, too. 

"Each one of these men deserves this, and so much more. The men and women inside deserve no less. I did your kingdom a _favor_ by ridding it of this sadistic, rapist _filth_. You should be _thanking me._ "

"They should... should have had a trial," Lhiam began weakly, his eyes never leaving the hanging man. 

"I held a trial. I looked into my mate's past, I saw the evils inflicted on him, and I found them guilty. I meted our their verdicts. The result is what you see here."

"So now what?" Dasan's thick, rough voice called, picking up where Lhiam seemed unable to continue. "Is your vengeance complete, or will you continue to massacre anyone you deem worthy of punishment?"

"I'm favorable to the second option, myself," the witch joked, but the man at his side grunted, the sound strange, a breath of air rather than the sound of a voice, and the witch smirked ruefully. "But we're done for now. My mate wishes to rest and explore his freedom. My only problem now is that I don't want to be followed. See, if I leave your little troupe of men alive, my mate and I won't be able to rest, for surely you'll come after us. So, while all of you are innocent, and would have been free of my vengeance, you're now a threat to my mate, and thus your lives are forfeit. I promise to make your deaths as painless as I'm able. As I said, I'm not a _complete_ monster."


	30. Chosen of Ravin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *****HI! and welcome to my first ever beta-read chapter! A huge thanks to my betas @Everlasting_Stardust @letusbetold @TheAceKnight @ReddRiot_KB & @ATel2018 (Wattpad) for their insights and comments that helped me make my story so much better. (You can thank @ReddRiot_KB for the umph of angst lol ;) ) I hope you like it!!*****

SAMI—

Of course I didn't stay behind. The moment my mate and his men were out of sight, I shifted and followed. I could hear the wolf calling after me, but I ignored him. He may be able to let his mate go off to danger and stay behind, but I wasn't capable of doing the same. 

I had finally convinced my mate to keep me, that he was mine, and we were going to be together, forever and forever, and nothing was going to keep that future from me. 

Nothing was going to take my Robert away from me. 

I saw the evil magic man and the black panther shifter at his side, and heard the shifter's story. It was sad, tragic that he hadn't been able to shift into his cat for his whole life. But that didn't make it any bit of okay that his mate was gonna try to kill mine and our friends. 

The panther shifter's mate smelled of death, but he also kind of smelled like something good too. Something like kindness and gentleness, but buried deep beneath his anger at the pain inflicted on his mate. Something like love for his mate that was overshadowed by the protectiveness that was overpowering everything else. 

" _Long time no see, kit_ ," a voice said gently, sounding like it was a little ways to my left, but also only echoing in my mind. I turned and smiled as well as I could in my cat form as the goddess Ravin crouched by my side. Marlin, in polar bear form, was planted firmly behind his mistress, a great rumble of greeting making the earth beneath my paws vibrate. 

_My mate's in danger_ , I thought, hoping she could hear me. She smiled, acknowledging my silent words, her pretty lips thinning over her sharp, white teeth. _Can you help me, mistress?_

" _Your mate's opponents are hurt and afraid, little kit. The panther is a great favorite of mine— my sweet Asaling. He is the son of one of my Guardians, one who gave up her immortal life to join her mortal mate, and he has endured... much_."

The goddess's eyes welled with unshed tears as she watched the panther shift into a heavily scarred young man.

" _The pain my children endure is agony for me to watch, but I am unable to interfere directly, or I may throw the balance of Nefiir off irreparably_."

_So you can't help my mate?_

"I _can't_ ," she said inside my mind with a gentle smile. And then her eyes flicked to the bear behind her. She nodded, and he began to move forward, each one of his steps like a small earthquake rumbling beneath my feet. " _But that's why I created my Guardians: to be my hands and my mouth, my power and my will. Go, little kit. Save your mate. But do not harm Asaling or his mate, please. Their story is not yet even begun, and their young third will need them to calm her restlessness and aid her in finding her full power_."

She pressed her lips against my head, just below my left ear. I felt a tingle of something hot race from the touch, down my spine, and then she was gone. 

I tumbled after the great Guardian, who moved slowly towards the gathering where Lhiam's men now stood within a few feet of the evil magic man and his mate. 

"... don't want to be followed," the man was saying. "See, if I leave your little troupe of men alive, my mate and I won't be able to rest, for surely you'll come after us. So, while all of you are innocent, and would have been free of my vengeance, you're now a threat to my mate, and thus your lives are forfeit. I promise to make your deaths as painless as I'm able. As I said, I'm not a _complete_ monster."

Marlin moved into place just as the man's hands rose in a threatening gesture. One minute a bear, the next a man I had only seen one time before, Marlin stared the evil magic man down with eyes of the purest, pale blue, nearly an eerie white. Unlike a regular wild mage, Marlin shifted fully dressed in thick leathers, nearly covered in weapons of various sizes and shapes. 

"I am Marlin," he grumbled, his voice as deep and grumbly as the bear he favored. He was the tallest man I'd ever seen, bigger even than Dasan or Nibley. He was all muscle and hard lines, and I could have sworn the bear was nearly visible beneath his skin, the effect amplified by his voice that sounded like he wasn't fully shifted to his human form. "I am a Guardian of Goddess Ravin, Protector of the Celestial Forest. I call a halt to this slaughter, and bid peace in the name of my mistress."

A shiver ran down my spine at the words of power Marlin intoned, and the neighs and wickers of terrified horses filled the silence that followed. I could see both Dasan and Nibley holding hands, the other hands resting on the hilts of their swords as they looked from the wild mage's mate, to Marlin, to the wild mage, and back again, as if not quite sure which one was the greatest danger. My Robert kept his eyes on the panther shifter and his mate, but I could see his eyes, too, flickering back to Marlin every few seconds, as if afraid to let him out of his sight. Marlin's power swept over every man in the group, hitting me first and hardest, and though it wasn't malevolent, it was so powerful it set my nerves on edge. But the evil magic man seemed not to be impressed at all. His eyes flickered to me for just a second before he sneered at Marlin. 

"Ravin is not my goddess and has no power over me."

"True," Marlin rumbled with an almost regal nod. "But the same is not true of your new mate. My mistress only wants what is best for Asaling. And slaughtering fifty innocent men, two of whom are mates to other wild mages, will rip his soul past what even the greatest hedge witch could heal. Your mate will not survive it, witch."

"Sami!" I heard my mate hiss suddenly from behind me, his voice horrified. As if he had only just seen me. "Fucking hell, Sami, you damn brat! What are you _doing_?" 

The sound of my mate's boots on the earth as he dismounted had my hackles raised, because the movement moved the witch's attention to my mate. 

"My mate will be fine. I'll protect him, and together we'll heal his body and mind," the witch said in annoyance, turning back to Marlin after one last, lingering look at my mate. 

"Not if you do this. I can assure you, with the many millennia I've lived and experienced, your mate is already past his threshold. His mind is breaking, and seeing you not only torture and kill the dozens you have in the past two days, but now these men I stand before... you'll lose him just as you've found him."

— _I'm... I'm not fragile_.— The panther shifter finally spoke, but his words weren't sure at all. And they were... inside his mind? I cocked my head in confusion as the panther's thoughts flowed into my ears as if he was speaking aloud. The man's hands moved too, but I knew from the looks in the eyes of the men around me that I wasn't the only one who understood the hand-words. I wasn't sure if this was Ravin's doing, or Marlin's, or if it was the evil witch man, but one of them had ensured we would all be able to understand the shifter who spoke with his hands. — _I_ asked _him— no_ , begged him _for vengeance. He did it, all of this, for me_.—

"Yes. And you now regret it, after seeing the evil he is capable of. Loving a man who could do these things— is it possible?"

The witch stiffened, and then he was staring, horrified, at the shifter beside him. He must have seen the truth of Marlin's words in his mate's eyes, because he took a step back, almost palpable fury flowing from him. His hands shook with rage as, with a sweeping gesture, every undead body hanging from the trees around us fell still, their souls finally leaving their bodies. A great sigh seemed to rise up from the castle, and I knew those still alive within the walls were dead now, released from whatever agony they'd been enduring. 

The witch wasn't satisfied though, and must have known Lhiam wouldn't rest with someone that powerful, willing to enact such evil, running free. For his next hand motion was directed at the men behind me. 

No thought but one crossed my mind as I leapt forward, catching the witch's fingers against my belly and taking the brunt of whatever spell he had set upon Lhiam's men. One thought, and one thought alone had me leaping forward without hesitation: _Protect Robert_. 

ROBERT—

The scream that tore from my mouth as Sami leapt forward, slamming into the witch, his body falling limp as some kind of bolt of black magic shot across his skin, was nearly otherworldly. 

I screamed his name. I screamed his name in terror and horror and anguish as his little body slipped to the dirt. 

Then my cry was overshadowed by a bear's roar as the Guardian shifted into the biggest black bear I had ever seen, lumbering furiously over the witch and panther shifter. 

" _That cat is one of Ravin's Chosen_!" the bear bellowed, fury in every line of his body. His voice seemed to come from the very air around me, but also somehow only from within my mind. 

I ignored the Guardian's howls, leaping forward towards Sami, my mind blanking as my heart fell into the pit of my belly like a boulder. My entire body was on fire, daggers in my chest at the sight of him so quiet and still, cold sweat breaking out across the entire expanse of my skin. No, _gods, no_ , my Sami was supposed to be laughing and joyful. He was supposed to be sparkling eyes and mischief, teasing me and taunting Dasan into contests. He should be happy and smiling and pressing sweet kisses against my cheek when he thought I was asleep. He was supposed to be staring up at me with pure adoration in his eyes, something I was wholly unworthy of, but that was mine nonetheless. He was supposed to be growling when Edon came near, and bringing me pretty rocks, his wet hair hanging in his face as he smirked with every bit of his teeth, proud as hell at the shining thing he'd found for me. 

He was supposed to be alive and loving and _gods, alive. Alive, be_ alive.

He was _not_ supposed to be prone and silent, pale as death with a slack mouth and not even a hint of life. My Sami was life and joy and laughter and love, and... _Gods, no, don't take him from me. Not now that I've just got him_. 

I fell to my knees beside his body and, not even caring that I was mere feet from the witch, I lifted Sami's limp form into my arms. Relief sloughed through me as I felt his heartbeat against my chest; it was hesitant and light, but it was there. 

_Gods, thank you_ , I prayed, my eyes hot with unshed tears, pushed back until a later time. Until I could scold him and kiss him and never let him out of my damn sight again. _He's alive_!

" _One of your mates is Chosen of Ravin, the other of Dhone, and you think to anger the gods with your heartless death and destruction_?" the Guardian continued, swiping at the air above the witch. The witch's eyes were wide, wary, but he was calm still, somehow unafraid of the monster he faced. I kept my eyes on the Guardian, Sami clutched to my chest, pulling him away inch-by-inch from the battle it looked like we may get caught in the middle of.

"You're going to be alright, Sami," I whispered right up against his ear, freezing as something warm pulsed against my lips as I pressed them to his head. I looked down and noticed a strange sigil I'd never seen before, seemingly burned into the skin and fur beneath his left ear. It looked similar to the markings on the Guardian's head. The Guardian bore a full beard and dirty blonde hair that hung in clotted hunks down his back and was pulled from his face by a thick leather strap at the top of his head. Both sides of his head were shaved, and tattoos of ancient-looking symbols were etched into his tanned skin there, some of them a perfect match for the one I now saw below Sami's ear. 

"I'm going to get you home, and Lady Sera's gonna fix you right up, okay? You're... you're gonna be okay."

Dasan jumped down from his horse, helping me up onto my feet as smoothly as we could manage, so as not to jostle Sami. He touched Sami's neck, feeling for his pulse, and met my eyes with a small smile and a reassuring nod.

"He's breathing and he's got a heartbeat, old friend," Dasan whispered, just as the Guardian's voice rose over all of us with the power in the sound making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. 

" _Leave now, witch_ ," the Guardian growled, slamming his front paws down, making the very ground beneath my feet shake. " _The humans will not follow; I will ensure it. And you better pray the two of us never see each other again, especially under similar circumstances. I will not be so merciful next time_."

The witch hesitated for only a moment before the panther shifter's hand on his arm had him turning. I barely followed what happened next, because I didn't understand it, my eyes refusing to process what I saw. One moment, the witch was pulling the shifter into his arms, wrapping the cloak around them both, the next they were both gone. 

Just... gone. 

The Guardian— Marlin— turned to me, lumbering toward me and making me flinch and clench my fingers into Sami's fur. Gods, he was huge, and impossibly imposing. And even I, with not a lick of magic in my bones, could sense the power he wielded in his body. 

" _Ah, little kit_ ," he keened, poking his nose against Sami's side. " _He's really a selfless little thing, isn't he? His pa was the same way— gave himself up to save the kit_."

"Please," I whispered, wanting to sob as Sami's breaths caught with every other inhale. Dasan's hand on my arm, the man steady at my side despite the Guardian's approach, gave me courage, and Sami's weight in my arms gave me strength enough to beg. Beg for the love I'd only just accepted as my own. "Can you help him?"

" _I'll carry him to your Lady Sera. She's blessed with a powerful kind of magic, and will be able to heal him. But I have to fly by air, and you can follow on horseback. I can carry you both, but I will fly slower_."

"Yes! Yes, take him!" I cried in agreement, refusing to allow the tears filling my eyes to fall. Not for fear of looking weak, but because I wouldn't be able to see what might be my last glimpse of Sami clearly if I was crying like a blubbering child. The bear nodded once, and then he was gone, replaced by a hawk that was at least double the size of Sami's bobcat. 

I held Sami's limp body up, and the hawk screeched as it swooped and grabbed Sami right from my hands. The loss of him from my arms was like a physical blow to my gut and my chest at the same time, and I very nearly toppled over. I would have, if Dasan hadn't been there to brace me up. I turned and watched them go, the hawk disappearing within seconds, then turned to Lhiam. 

"Go," he said without waiting for me to ask. "Delik, Kenyon, Klein, go with him. The rest of you, with me. Let's get this mess cleaned up."

Followed by the three men Prince Lhiam had sent to escort me, I shot back the way we had come only an hour or so before, chasing after my future. My entire future that rode in the talons of a hawk far above my head.


	31. Disobedient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, then the epilogue!

SERA—

For the second time in what was only a few months, a wild animal came into the front courtyard— this time flying— carrying someone injured for me to heal. 

When I'd taken this job that Prince Lhiam offered me, I had been excited to spread my proverbial wings and spend my years as free as I could after living my life in the box of my papa's expectations. I was getting far more than I had bargained for. 

Not that I was complaining. I was surrounded by some of the kindest, most honorable men and women I'd ever known, and the magic I'd begun to learn about was like nothing I'd ever dreamed of. My hedge witch magic was nothing to a man who could turn into a cougar, or what now headed towards me. What I could feel from the hawk that was far too large to be a natural hawk. 

_A Guardian_ , I thought, with a flash of intuition I've never really been able to understand. I just sort of... knew that the hawk that dropped an unconscious, limp Sami right into my arms was one of Ravin's Guardians. 

" _He's been hit with a killing spell by a spirit witch, a very powerful one. But he's Marked by Ravin."_

I nodded up at the hovering hawk, the soldiers and nobles around me gawking as the hawk screeched once before disappearing completely in midair. 

One moment he was there, the next, gone. 

" _Thank you, my lady_ ," the Guardian's voice rang in my mind, and I smiled at his easy acceptance and the kind, gentle tone of his words. 

I carried Sami, limp but warm in my arms, back through to my workroom. I had only just set him down on the little cot that was on a raised dais so I could work on my patients when Silvia slammed her way into the room. 

"Fuck, Sami," she growled, sounding so much like Robert getting frustrated with the small shifter I actually looked up again to make sure it was her. "He gonna be alright?"

"The Guardian said he was goddess-blessed, so I'm sure he'll be fine. I just need to give him a few things to counteract the spell. Hold his hand for me, talk to him a minute, try to get him to wake up. I'm going to mix some potions."

Silvia nodded, and within minutes she was holding him up, groggy and disoriented as I poured copious amounts of three different potions down his throat. The death spell I sensed in Sami's chest was, for all intents and purposes, an overpowered sleeping spell. So if we could get Sami to wake up, most of the danger would be past. 

By the time I heard Robert's horse thundering into the courtyard near the front of the castle, Sami was awake, aware, and being berated by an anxious Silvia. 

Robert slamming through the doors had the three of us jumping in surprise. Silvia sputtered to a stop mid-word, glaring back at Robert, but he completely ignored the woman's accusing stare. His glossy eyes fixed on Sami, Robert took one step into the room before his knees buckled and he dropped to the ground. His chest was heaving with laboured breaths as he continued to glare up at Sami. 

Sami cried out in shock when Robert fell, leaping to his feet and running to kneel beside Robert's shaking body. He reached a hesitant hand towards the larger man, but seemed unsure if he was allowed to touch him. 

"Dammit, Sami," Robert growled as he scooped the smaller man into his arms, completely ignoring Sami's hesitation. "I told you to stay home," he finished as he dug his face into Sami's hair, taking deep breaths and shaking his head against Sami. 

"I'm sorry, my mate, I—" 

"— Shut up, Sami," Robert hissed, yanking him closer as he fell back on his ass, Sami perched between his legs. "Just... just keep your damn mouth shut. You're in trouble, you d-damn brat, and I need you to be quiet for a minute. Or ten. An hour. Just..."

My chest clenched with a nasty, jealous twinge when Sami only nodded, his small hands reaching up, combing through Robert's hair. Sami began to visibly and audibly purr, letting himself be held so tightly I could see Robert's muscles clenching. 

Silvia and I exchanged a look before we snuck out through the side door, out towards my herb garden. I wasn't sure if I'd ever get that image out of my head— Robert dropping to his knees in relief, then holding Sami to his body as if he were the very breath he needed in his lungs— but I wanted it gone. Because it was something I'd never have, that devotion and patience and understanding. That godsdamned love I seemed to be surrounded by. And that— that thought, the knowledge that I'd be alone the rest of my life because my mind was broken, had me wanting nothing more than the safety of a hot flame and my soft skin. 

A comfort I hadn't needed years. 

SAMI—

My mate held me against him for a long time, his grip so tight it was a little hard for me to breathe. But I didn't care. I only held him just as tightly back, pressing small kisses to his head every few moments and purring to assure him I was there and alive and we were both safe. 

"Sami, please, you have to be more careful. I can't lose you. You can't leave me, okay? You gotta let me die first. I'm older anyways, so I'll go first. But you can't die before me, 'cause I'm just... Dammit, Sami, I'm not strong enough to live without you now."

I nodded and bit his neck a little, just hard enough that he felt it. Felt me. "We'll go together, ok? You gotta not go before me either. We'll go to sleep one night, in a long time, many, many years, and we'll just sleep side-by-side and dream and then we'll be among the stars. But together, ok?"

"Yeah, Sami," my mate whispered, his voice a little tight, his face still not coming out from hiding against my hair and neck. Where he was pressed was hot, so I knew he was crying, but I didn't say anything. Because my mate got embarrassed real easy, and I didn't want to embarrass him just when he was being so sweet. 

"Yeah," he repeated. "We go together. It's a promise."

A while later, when Robert had calmed a little and after Lady Sera looked me over one more time, Robert not letting me go hardly enough for her to get to me, she sent me home with a couple of vials of foul-smelling potion. I wanted to dump them out, but Robert grabbed them from me and put them in his pocket. 

"You'll drink them and you won't complain, Sami, or I swear to the gods no sex for a month. Understood?"

I pouted, hurt that my mate would be okay with not mating me for a whole month, but it wasn't long before his threat became all too real. I drank the gross potions, and it still took my mate damn near two days to let me outta his sight, and another before he let me outta his sight for more than a few hours at a time. It would'a been cute, romantic even, if it weren't so damn annoying. And if he was still fucking me while being so clingy. 

A few nights after the showdown with the witch and his panther mate, my mate still wouldn't even barely touch me. I begged him to fuck me, let me knot him good and proper, whichever he wanted, I wasn't picky, but he was hesitant. Didn't want'a hurt me. 

So I hurt him. But only just a little, until he stopped being selfish and afraid that a butterfly or a stiff wind was gonna knock me down. I rolled him over, and he only fought me a little— afraid to hurt me still, I thought— and spent as little time as I could opening up his pretty ass for my cock. Then I was inside of him, and his little whimpering whines and growls were just perfect in my ear. 

He stopped being afraid to hurt me after that. 

ROBERT—

As my cum cooled against my belly, Sami's body limp against me, I ran my hands absentmindedly through his thick, curly, mussed hair. I memorized the way he felt against my skin, his hot breaths sending gooseflesh across my stomach. His cock slowly slipped out of my sore hole, and I flinched when the head finally popped out, leaving me empty and clenching unconsciously against the open air. 

My fingers traced lines down Sami's neck, then his back, wanting to outline the way he felt in my arms. I'd nearly lost him, and that fear was proving difficult to push away. Though he was alive and warm against me, I couldn't get the image of him dropping limp to the ground out of my head. My heart had stopped, my mind shattering as I could do nothing but scream and move to him. So now, to hold him in my arms, a little sore because my little Sami had been impatient with my gentle care of him, was a balm on my frazzled nerves. I'd known I was being too careful with him. I'd known I was so afraid to hurt him that I was nearly pushing him away, but that image of him falling lifeless to the earth had filtered through my mind anytime he touched me, anytime he smiled or looked at me or, gods, anytime I even thought of him. 

He shot that out of the water tonight, though. He'd all but tackled me, shoving himself inside of me and forcing two orgasms out of my body before he'd knotted his prick inside of me and left me shaking beneath him. 

"Sami?" I whispered against his hair as he lay sprawled across my chest. I ran my fingers through his curls, trying in vain to untangle them. 

"Yes, mate?" he mumbled in reply, his voice sleepy and sated. 

"I love you."

His smile was evident in his tone as he kissed my chest just beneath his cheek and replied. "And I love you, mate."

"Never leave me, ok?"

Sami took a deep breath, and then lifted himself up to stare down into my eyes, his own sparkling and bright. 

"You're mine, Robert. Forever and forever. I'll never leave you, and I'll never let you go."

"Promise?" I asked, my eyes clenched tight against the emotions clogging my throat at the surety and confidence in his voice. At the way he had never hesitated to love me. I'd been his from that first day he called me mate. It had just taken me a little while to catch on. 

"Forever and forever, I promise," Sami replied, leaning down to press his lips to mine.

"Forever and forever," I swore against his lips, my words a vow spoken with all the honor and sacredness I could muster. "Forever and forever, Sami."


	32. EPILOGUE: Gifts in the Den

SAMI—

My mate was very kind to me, and he was a good mate. He bought me pretty things that caught my eye and sparkled and made me smile. He tried to make our den a home, though I told him over and over, it was already the _best_ home because it was mine and it was his and I was safe and warm and he loved me. He laughed and bought me more things anyways, so I stopped complaining. I liked the pretty things, so if he wanted to give them to me, then I'd take them and suck on his balls in return, since he liked that so much more than pretty things. 

He bought me books with lots'a pictures, a big carved clothes holder that made me cry silently through the night as I studied the carvings on it as my mate slept. I spent that entire night after my mate brought it to our home studying the little animals on it, fingering the exquisite work that someone had spent many hours on. I sat cross-legged in front of the big clothes holder, staring at it and occasionally reaching out to follow a carving, tears pouring unchecked down my cheeks, until the sun began to peak through the trees and my mate began to stir. 

Then I went to wake him in the best way I knew how: crawling beneath the blankets and up to swallow him whole. 

I didn't know why the clothes holder made me cry, and the tears weren't sad ones. I didn't understand why I was crying while I was smiling at the same time. I didn't know something like happy tears existed before my mate made me intimately acquainted with them. 

I spent my days with Mistress Silvia still, because she'd told me she was gonna take me on as an apprentice. I wasn't really sure what that meant, but it seemed to mean that I was gonna keep on helping her, but more official-like, so I was ok with being her apprentice. Plus, Prince Lhiam told me I got money from being her apprentice, so I was able to provide more for my mate. After I learned that, I was even more pleased with the arrangement. 

I loved helping Mistress Silvia with the baby animals the most, helping them come into the world, ensuring they were healthy and clean and fed. She let me name a few, so I named one of the hound babies Dog, one of the barn kits Kit, and even one of the hawks Bird. 

She wouldn't let me name anymore after Bird, and she muttered a lot after each one, but Bird was my favorite, so that was ok. 

My mate mostly liked to put himself inside me, and I was happy with that. I loved the way he felt in me. The way he moved and how his hot cum coated my insides and made me warm and marked me for him. Marked me as his. Every once in a while, though, he'd look at me in a certain way, his cheeks bright and pink and so precious, and I'd know he wanted me to knot him. He wanted me inside him instead, holding him down and making his insides ache. I liked my Robert like that— vulnerable and laid out bare for me— so it was always a treat when he let me love on him.

I was happy, and I was doing my best to make my mate happy. And I was certain that I was doing just that— for real this time. My mate laughed, and he touched me in front of other people. He glared if any one gave either of us a bad look, and he came to get me wherever I was with Mistress Silvia at the end of each day, laughing and kissing me when I jumped up into his arms. We usually ate before we went back to our den, since neither of us could cook, then we spent the night in each other's arms, slaking our lusts over and over until we both fell to sleep on our big, warm bed, our bodies tangled and our breaths heavy. 

And then my mate asked me something I didn't understand, and I learned something strange about humans. Something I didn't really understand, no matter how much my mate explained it to me. The two of us claiming each other wasn't the way it's done among humans. They need a piece of paper signed by the prince that says they belong to each other. 

As long as my mate was mine, in all ways, I didn't really care one way or the other though. My Robert was mine, and if he wanted the _married_ , then that's what I'd do. 

ROBERT—

The cottage was mostly furnished already, though I replaced the bed, but I filled it with things I knew Sami liked: as many soft, fluffy pillows as I could possibly find, lots of bright, shiny baubles I found in the market in town, and dozens of illustrated tomes on animals and their anatomy. He couldn't read well yet, but the pictures and diagrams fascinated him. I had to dip into my savings, but I had it to spare. I had been working for Prince Lhiam since I left the army, and I was a soldier for many years before then. I'd never really had anything I wanted to spend that money on. Or, _anyone_. So I had a decent-sized nest egg I now felt excited to spend on the small bobcat who'd managed to out-stubborn my heart. 

My biggest purchase was a hand-crafted wardrobe Dasan and I somehow finagled into the bedroom, though it was so big we'd both feared we'd have to leave it in the front rooms. I had it commissioned from the Teren carpenter, with little carvings of wild animals, including some of Sami's favorites— the hawks he helped take care of in the keep, a few horses, including two that were obviously Honeysuckle and Horse, and of course, a handful of bobcats. He loved that wardrobe, and I could often find him fingering the carvings, his face alight with wonder at the images. 

He reciprocated my little gifts with his own, continuing his courting even though he'd caught me and made me his. He would leave me pretty little rocks he had found along the lake shore, sometimes telling me the story of them and where he had procured them. He offered them to me as if they were the greatest jewels in the world, and before long every window frame in the cottage had lines of shiny, oddly shaped, or otherwise unique rocks and pebbles. He also brought me herbs that smelled unique or wonderful, pretty flowers, and the softest furs from his hunts with the keep huntsmen.

Two weeks after the horror in Keliant, I invited Dasan and Nibley to our home for dinner— our den, as Sami referred to it— as a sort of small house warming party. I cooked a wild hare Sami had brought home, bloody and dripping and disgusting. Though they were our guests, Nibley had to help me skin and cook the hare. He was horrified that I'd never actually cooked before. 

"I've always had you or Dasan or a chef," I explained with a shrug. Yet I'd wanted to cook one of the animals Sami hunted for me. I wanted to show him my appreciation for his presents to me, because the gods knew I'd mostly been disgusted or even annoyed at the sight of them before. 

"You're fucking helpless," Nibley muttered, then he walked me through gutting and skinning the animal. I tried to keep my breakfast down, but nearly gagged a handful of times. From the look on Nibley's face, I knew I'd never hear the end of his teasing. 

"You can gut a man and not even flinch, but a little rabbit has you wanting to empty your belly into the bushes. Gods, Robert, you're such a freak."

I rolled my eyes, but took the ribbing with a grunt and didn't try to fight it. Not only was he right, but he was showing me how to cook for Sami, so I'd take whatever he could dish out and be grateful for it. 

After dinner, I stared into the little fire in our cozy front room, Sami nearly asleep on my lap, Dasan and Nibley chuckling about something one of the Emperor's men— a young man named River, who had stayed over temporarily after the Emperor left— had done. He was a great source of amusement to the two men, for some reason, though I barely listened to half of their conversation. Instead, I watched Sami, his mouth quirked up into a smile as he listened to Dasan and Nibley crack jokes about the young guard they were quite certain was fully infatuated with Cain. 

"Hey, Sami," I whispered, and he looked up lazily to meet my eyes. He lay sprawled across my lap, his back to mine, my arms wrapped around his belly, his head resting against my chest. He straddled me backwards, his ass firmly lodged against my cock, sore after that morning's wake-up call from Sami's mouth after last night's vigorous marathon sex. 

"Yes, Robert?" he replied, purring loudly as I ran my fingers through his hair. I snorted with amusement when my fingers very quickly got tangled in his curls. The smile on his face had my chest clenching so tightly I flinched, and the wrong words, words I'd kept inside and been afraid to see the light of day, pushed their way out without my meaning them to, and I was horrified the moment they did. 

"Marry me, Sami," I said, as quietly as I could, praying he could hear me but that maybe Dasan and Nibley wouldn't. "Be my husband, and I'll be your mate, and we'll spend our lives being a really mismatched couple. What do you say?"

The words had bubbled out of my throat, from deep within my belly, before I could stop them. When they reached the air, I wanted desperately to take them back. To rip them out of the space in front of my mouth and swallow them back down into the pit of my stomach. Dasan and Nibley fell silent, and I could feel their gazes on me and Sami like a physical touch. What had I done? What if he said no? Gods, what if he said yes? 

Sami sat up so quickly I grunted in pain as he dug his elbow into my stomach and turned to me, nodding vehemently, his eyes bright and smiling. "Yes, my mate," he answered without pause or hesitation, and then, with a sudden hesitant, furrowed brow, "What is marry?"

I laughed, followed by both Dasan and Nobley's deep-throated chuckles, and dug my face into Sami's neck as he petted my hair with a bemused, confused sort of air, waiting patiently for me to calm my racing heart. 

Gods, what was I getting myself into?

Later, after I had explained to Sami what marriage was, and why it was different from being his mate— he was very confused as to why something else was needed beyond just our consummating our relationship, or "claiming," as he called it— I endured both Nibley and Dasan's ribbing with a smile. I now had a fiancé, a man who would soon be my husband, so they could tease me all they wanted and I wouldn't care one whit. 

"Hey, Dasan?"

"Yeah, Nibs?"

"Let's get married."

"Sure, Nibs," Dasan said dryly, his eyes dancing with amusement as they ignored Sami's very loud, very happy purrs. He dug himself into my stomach and refused to let me move even an inch. 

"I don't do romance— candlelight or _getting down on my knee_ or nothing, I just pop the question 'cause I'm warm and my stomach's full and it just seemed like the right time. I'm far too masculine for silly things like romance, you know."

"Eh, that's ok, Nibs. I don't mind so much. Maybe for our wedding, you can just take me to the judge and—"

"Gods, enough, I get it!" I grumbled, and Sami laughed against me. He knew they were teasing me, though I don't think he understood fully why. They were right, though. Sami deserved a better proposal. He deserved romance and a man who didn't just ask him to marry him because the words had been sitting at the end of his tongue for the last week. Longer than that, if I was being honest. "I'll ask him again, you giant pains in my ass!"

"You don't gotta ask me again, mate," Sami whispered, turning to look up at me with a smile. "I like the way you asked already. It was very, ah, romantic to me."

"No, Sami, they're right," I grumbled reluctantly. I hated admitting when Dasan and Nibley were right. Probably mostly because it was so damn often. "You deserve something better, and I'll—"

"— Hey, Robert?" Sami cut in, turning himself fully around so he was straddling me, groin-to-groin. I flinched when my cock immediately began to respond to his heat and the pressure of his body against mine. "I'm very happy with you, just as you are. You are perfect for me. I don't need you to ask me again, all pretty and special. That you asked me is already special. Just marry me, ok? Everything else is just silly things I don't need."

My chest tight, my eyes burning, I nodded, the only move I was capable of at the moment, and Sami's mouth found mine unerringly. I didn't even notice when Dasan and Nibley snuck out, but I prayed they'd done so before Sami's hand reached into my pants to grip my cock, because the noise I made was whiny and pathetic. And I hoped they were far enough away when I came against his hand because my scream echoed through the cottage so loudly my ears rang.

"I love you, my Robert," Sami whispered right up against my ear before pulling back and licking my release from his fingers with a wicked, seductive grin. 

"Gods, Sami," I groaned, my cock twitching as his tongue darted out over and over, drinking my cum down as if it was the greatest thing he'd ever tasted. "I can't count the ways I love you. Thank you for loving me."

"Thanks for being born to love me," he replied, just before his mouth met mine and I was lost, again. And again. And again.

As Sami would say, forever and forever. 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***** Thank you for sticking with me through Robert and Sami's story. I hope you grew to love them both as much as I did! Hopefully I'll be able to play around with them in future books as well (Sami's in Sera/Lacy/Galen's story quite a bit, so that's good). As always, let me know what you think, and I'll see you in a few weeks when I start uploading the next story!
> 
> Also, another shout out to my betas for their comments and time. Sami and Robert's last few chapters were so much better because of you :) @ATel2018 @TheAceKnight @Everlasting_Stardust @letusbetold @ReddRiot_KB *****


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